


Changing the World - Marauder Style

by Child_of_demon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dumbledore Bashing, Evil Dumbledore, Fate, Ginny Bashing, Hermione Bashing, Manipulative Dumbledore, Molly Weasley Bashing, Multi, Ron Bashing, Snape Bashing, Umbridge Bashing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 20:39:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1831507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Child_of_demon/pseuds/Child_of_demon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When James Potter died, he didn't expect to get sent inside his son's mind by The Great Lady Fate to "change the future for the better". With him helping Harry, together they'll go to Hogwarts, ruin the Old Goat's plans and maybe save some people along the way. The Wizarding World will never know what hit them. AU, slash, lemons, character bashing, prankster!Harry, many pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello people! It's Childe here posting my first fic on Ao3. 
> 
> This story has previously been posted on Fanfiction.net and I plan on updating new chapters both there and here. I have currently 7 chapters ready in addition to this one, but since I'm reeeally slow on writing the new chapter I'll post them here a few days apart. This chapter is just the prologue.
> 
> I do not own Harry Potter. All characters and things that you recognize from the Harry Potter books belong to J.K.Rowling. I only own the story idea and Lady Fate/Kyria, who is my OC.

When James Potter saw the green light shoot from the Dark Lord’s wand towards him, knowing he’d die, he didn’t know what to expect of death. Would it be eternal darkness or light? Or maybe he would meet his dead loved ones? He didn’t know. However, what he certainly hadn’t expected was to wake up to the sound of footsteps and quiet murmuring.   
At first, he thought he was hearing things. He was dead. There was no way that what he was hearing was real. Then he realized that he could feel something hard under him. Weird. He was pretty sure that dead people couldn’t feel anything, since at least ghosts and paintings couldn’t. So he opened his eyes, only to have to blink rapidly from the bright light.   
When his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that he laying the floor of an empty room that was painted completely white. The only speck of color was a black door to his left, which, when he looked at it properly, seemed to be slightly ajar. The noise was coming from there. 

Deciding that just laying there would do him no good, James stood up with surprised ease, considering that he’d just died, and walked quietly to the door, taking a look in. Inside was a brightly lit, large room colored in red, gold, black and silver, with many what seemed like curtains in the walls. In the opposite side of the room was a wall filled with what seemed to be like images from all around the world - both Muggle and Wizarding. On the front of it was a large black sofa facing said wall. The most eye-catching and interesting thing in the room, however, was a woman pacing in circles in the middle of it, muttering things quietly to herself. The woman had long wavy hair that seemed to be changing between different shades of red, along with constantly color changing eyes that were currently shadowed with fury. Her ageless yet god-like beautiful face was frowning in anger, as she continued pacing, her clothing changing from type, color and time period to another. James couldn’t hear everything she was muttering, but what he what he could sounded something like: “That........ manipulative......Old Goat.......messing with my plans........pay.........give him hell.......that girl.......kill her........touch him.........get in the way of my pairings......they’ll pay......”

James wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but he started thinking that maybe making her notice him wouldn’t be a good idea. Before he could back away, however, the woman suddenly stopped her pacing and turned her eyes to him.

 

“Ah, I see that you’re awake. Come in. We have a lot to discuss”, the woman said, as she walked to the sofa and snapped her fingers, making it change to a desk with two chairs, one on either side. She sat on the one with its back to the wall, and gestured him closer. Not seeing any other choice and wanting answers to his inner questions, James walked to her and sat on the chair in the opposite side of the desk.

 

“Okay, I know that you have a lot of questions, but first things first. I am The Great Lady Fate, also known as Destiny, Moíra Kyría, Bitch and other crap like that. I’d prefer it if you called me Kyría, as the other names are far too bothersome. I am the one who decides the fates of mortals, gods and world alike. Tough I usually don’t bother with the mortals, unless I happen to like them. Which is the case now. That’s also pretty much the reason you’re here”, the woman, now known as Kyría, said in a blank tone as if she was commenting the weather and not telling him that yes, Fate exists, and he’s currently in front of it.

“Wait, what the heck are you talking about? Aren’t I dead?” James asked feeling extremely puzzled. He had no idea of what was going on. If the woman before him really was the Fate, what had he to do with anything she just said? Why was he here?

 

Kyría, however, just rolled her eyes and said: “Yeah, you’re dead. And didn’t I just tell you that I have happened to take liking your little son and I want you to change the way things are going because that Old Goat dared to mess with my plans?”

“Err.....No?” Was his answer, as he looked at the woman, wondering if she was actually sane. The woman seemed to ignore his answer as she continued:

“Anyway, I’m going to give you are quick once over of the situation. Firstly, I can say that everything that’s happening can be blamed on Dumbledore, also known as Old Goat. The bastard-”

“Dumbledore’s a great man! Don’t insult him!” James exclaimed, glaring at the being sitting before him angrily. To his surprise she just looked at him for a second before starting to laugh heartily, slapping her hand to the desk while holding her stomach.

“Dumbledore.....a good man......What a joke.....Oh, my stomach........!” She managed to say between her laughter, before she finally calmed down - after five minutes of laughter - to cough and say:

“James, say, just what exactly has the Old Goat done for you to call him a good man?”

“Well..... he defeated Grindelwald and he’s the only one Voldemort is afraid of. And he protected us by warning us about the prophecy and-....”

“Did he really? I seriously doubt that. Tell me, why didn’t you hide in the Potter Manor? Correct me if I’m wrong, but last time I checked your Manor has some of the strongest wards in the Wizarding World, and surely you could have put Fidelius Charm on that, instead? Why is it that even while knowing that you still hid in Godric’s Hollow?” Kyríe interrupted him, raising her eyebrow while looking at him pointedly.

“Because Dumbledore told us....to.....” As James spoke, realization suddenly hit him and his eyes widened. “Don’t tell me.....Dumbledore knew that Voldemort would find our hiding place? He planned for us to die? Why?”

“Yes, he did. And if you’d allow me to continue and stop interrupting me, I’d answer that question.” Was the answer he got, which made him blush a bit as he muttered “Sorry”.

 

“Now, as I was saying, Dumbledore sat everything up. And I mean everything. Jamie, didn’t it ever seem suspicious that a so-called Seer, who has never had a single vision in her life, happens to get see the Great Prophecy just when she was in a job interview in Dumbledore’s office? And that Voldemort’s spy - also known as Severus Snape - just coincidentally happened to hear the first part of it, which just as coincidentally was the part that would no doubt make the Dark Lord come after Harry - who is alive and who everyone think destroyed Voldemort and now call him The Boy-Who-Lived, by the way. Wasn’t it also Dumbledore who told you and Lily to get married even though you and Sirius were together and later told you not to tell anyone that it wasn’t Lily’s child?” Lady Fate then continued, speaking in a tone that made her dislike towards Dumbledore very clear. As he listened to her speak, James first became shocked, but it soon changed to anger which grew the more he heard about the Old Goat’s manipulations. He was furious at the idea that Dumbledore had manipulated them even since they joined the Order. In fact he was so angry that he at first didn’t hear the woman’s question. Only after she snapped her fingers before his nose he blinked, and then nodded, saying:

“Yeah. He said that the family would need a Lady Potter, and when Lily agreed to give birth to our son for us he told us that it’d be safer for Harry for people to not know that he was the Heir of both Potter and Black. But anyway, you still haven’t told me where the hell I am. And what happened to Harry? Is he alright? What about Lily and Sirius?” James asked, suddenly growing dreadful when he remembered that Harry and Lily had been in the house when Voldemort came. And Sirius would have come there after the wards fell.

Fate, however, just rolled her eyes again exasperatedly and said:

“Jamie, I JUST told you that Harry is alive, defeated Voldemort ‘cause of those protections that you placed on him, is called The-Boy-Who-Lived by the wizarding world and got dumped to the doorstep of the Dursleys - you know, those pigs who’re related to Lily - by that idiotic Old Goat aka Dumbledore. Speaking of Lily, she kinda went dead when Voldemort aka Jerk-Ass shot the killing curse at her when she refused to let him kill Harry. My condolences and so on. As for Sirius, he went after that cursed rat, who had set him a trap and made him look like a murderer by supposedly blowing himself up with some Muggles, shouting something like “How could you” and cut his finger of. Then he just turned to a rat and ran away. Then the idiots who call themselves the Ministry seemed it fit to decide that Sirius was the Secret Keeper without, you know, CHECKING IT from your will or by using that veritaseum-thingy or whatever, and shipped Sirius to Azkaban without giving him a trial. Of course the Old Goat didn’t stop them, as he was the one who made sure that Sirius didn’t get that damn trial and he wanted Sirius to be locked away in Azkaban so that he could put Harry with the Dursleys and nicely manipulate him to be his pawn/weapon.”

It took awhile for her words to sink in to James’ head, and when they did, his face turned furious as he started shouting:

“THEY DID WHAT?! WHY THE BLOODY HELL THEY DIDN’T DO ANYTHING TO CHECK IF HE ACTUALLY WAS THE SECRET KEEPER?! And more importantly, WHY THE MERLIN IS HARRY WITH THE DURSLEYS?! We made it very clear in our will that he should be put ANYWHERE BUT WITH THEM OR SOME DEATH EATER! AND HOW DOES DUMBLEDORE DARE TO TRY TO USE HARRY AS A WEAPON?! HE’S NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!” His little shouting left James panting for air, and his face was slightly red, both from anger and from shouting so much without taking a breath. Fate, however seemed completely uncaring about his shouting, as she continued:

“Indeed, they’re not getting away with this. That’s the reason why you’re here. As you can see, Dumbledore just fucked everything up. Should I let things be as they are, Harry would grow up not knowing that he was a wizard, feel grateful to Dumbledore for getting him out of Dursleys to Hogwarts, be completely under his thumb, get two so-called friends - a git and a know-it-all - who’re actually reporting everything to Dumbledore and just be fuckingly shitty friends, and get together with a fangirling bitch who just wants his money and fame, not to mention all the other shit he’d have to go through. Meaning that he’d be completely miserable and all my plans would be ruined. Which will not do. So I’m going to send you back there, where you’ll basically live inside Harry’s head and tell him everything about the wizarding world and its customs and whatever shit you parents usually do, and warn him about Dumbledore, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley - those two are his so called “friends” - Cho Chang and Ginny Weasley - those two are the bitches who’re after his love -, and Molly Weasley - you know, the Weasley Matriarch who apparently wants Harry’s fortune by having him mysteriously die after him and Ginny would get married, which you better not let happen, by the way. And make sure he lives up to Marauder name. It’s amusing to watch people being pranked. Got it?”

James just looked at the woman before him like she’d gone crazy and, after going over her rant in his head, said:

“So let me get this straight. You want me to live inside my son’s head, teaching him pretty much everything I know, and make sure he doesn’t trust Dumbledore, befriend those two people who’d otherwise be his so-called friends, not let those to girls anywhere near him and not let him become a part of Dumbledore or Molly Weasley’s plans. Right. Would be just a bit easier if, you know, I actually knew what those people looked like, what exactly those people have done to Harry to make you hate them so much and WHAT EXACTLY THOSE PLANS ARE?”

“Now why should I do that? It’d be too easy for you. But I guess that I’ll have to give you some kind of idea of what’s going on. Or more like what’d have happened if I hadn’t interfered. But since it’d take way too long for me to explain it all, I’ll just let you watch some of those things”, Fate said while snapping her fingers two times, making one of the images in the wall to glow and grow bigger, starting then to show images of Dumbledore, Molly Weasley, a bushy haired girl, a red-haired girl and a boy with the same hair color, among other people, as well as let them hear what they were saying. 

After the “image wall” had shown pretty much all of the screw-ups the people in the images had done, its glow and site returned to normal and James just sat there, trying to wrap his mind around all he had seen. Which was pretty hard considering that pretty much everything he’d thought he’d known about Dumbledore or Molly Weasley had been false and the more what they were planning to do to Harry sank in, the angrier he became. How dare they try to use his baby boy as a weapon against Voldemort! He could not let this slide. They had messed with his family, and he’d be damned if he didn’t make them pay for it. Because no-one, and I mean no-one, messes with a Potter and gets away with it.

 

Lady Fate aka Kyria watched James Potter get a furious, but also determined look on his face, and smirked. Obviously he wasn’t pleased with the Old Goat and his minions, and that meant that they’d be in for hell once he got his hands on them. And that he’d make sure they wouldn’t get anywhere near poor little Harry with their evil plans. Which was all the better for her own plans. Yes, this would turn extremely interesting.  Oh, the fun of the mortals.

 

“James”, she then said, making said man’s attention turn to her, “before you go, I want you to know that Ginny Weasley will most likely try to use love potion on Harry. Make sure that Harry is careful around her and doesn’t eat anything that has been near her. Especially if it’s a so-called “gift” from her. Same with that Cho-bitch. I don’t want anyone to force him to love them. That just wouldn’t do.  Also, I want you to change the Wizarding World to the better. How you do that or what that means, I don’t care. Just show them what happens when they try to put the responsibility of saving their world on the shoulders of a young boy. I happen to not like that.”

At her words, James nodded surprisingly seriously considering his personality, which made Fate to continue: “Now, if you’re ready, I think it’s time you go. Make sure to do everything I told you to. It shouldn’t be so hard, now that you’ve seen what they’ve done.” Again, James nodded to her, not risking to speak. He didn’t think that she’d listen to what he said anyway.

“Oh yeah, one more thing. It would you good to not dislike or judge someone just because they’re in Slytherin or they’ve been raised to act like their parent for their childhood. Considering what family your lover belongs to, I think you understand why. Now, off you go.” After saying this, Fate clapped her hands, and a bright light enclosed James, making him fade away.

 

As The Great Lady Fate sat in her now empty room, a smirk found its way to her face before she burst into laughter. Soon those who had meddled with her plans would feel what the wrath of the Fate itself felt like. They had offended her, and soon, they would pay.

 

Yes, things would soon be very interesting, indeed.

 

The Wizarding World would never know what hit them.

 

 


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's life at the Dursleys and getting his letter. Also known as "Harry having fun tormenting the pigs".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey people, it's Childe here again with the first official chapter of CTW. Hope you have fun reading it. 
> 
> Thanks to my beta DemonicHope for helping me out with this chapter. 
> 
>  
> 
> ~___~
> 
> I do not own Harry Potter, as Ginny didn't die in the Chamber and thus I'm clearly not JK Rowling. I only own Kyria.

A normal, peaceful sunny day on Privet Drive, a perfectly normal street with perfectly normal people. In that street was a totally ordinary looking house, identical to all the other houses in the street. By looking at the said house, one wouldn’t think that there was anything extraordinary with it. But as we all have so many times learned, looks can be quite deceiving. For if one were to stand outside of it, they would hear the peaceful silence be broken with.....

“BOY!” 

Inside, a big and very fat man with a moustache, named Vernon Dursley - whose face was currently so red it resembled a tomato -, was shouting at a raven haired, green eyed boy with glasses, who was looking at him innocently, trying - and failing - to look surprised at the same time. 

A few feet away from the fat man was an almost as fat boy screaming his head off, while his oddly pink hair was pointing straight upwards, somehow defying the laws of gravity. This boy was Dudley Dursley, the most spoiled brat in the whole London. Next to him was a thin, tall woman with a long neck, trying desperately to soothe the boy, saying things like: “Oh, my poor Duddiekins!” and “Don’t worry, we’ll fix it right away” etc. This woman would be Petunia Dursley.

The raven haired boy, named Harry James Potter, ignored his cousin’s screaming and instead smiled innocently at his uncle, and asked:  
“Yes, Uncle Vernon?” 

This, however, seemed to anger the man even more, seeing that his face got even redder, and caused him to shout: 

“DON’T YOU DARE ACT INNOCENT, BOY! I KNOW YOU DID THAT TO DUDLEY, AND YOU BETTER FIX HIM RIGHT NOW OR YOU’LL BE IN YOUR CUPBOARD UNTIL NEW YEAR!” 

Despite the man’s threat, Harry appeared unfazed with it, instead tilting his head a little and saying: 

“But Uncle Vernon, I see it quite impossible for me to be the one to make Dudley look like that, seeing that I was in the kitchen at the time, and I honestly don’t know how I’d be able to make it point upwards, with the laws of gravity and all. And locking me in my cupboard would be pretty pointless, I think, seeing that I can always get out of there. Like the last time. And the time before that.” 

Unfortunately the boy’s reasoning didn’t seem to calm the man and instead had the opposite effect, as he shouted “GO TO YOUR CUPBOARD!” in response, while pointing at the said cupboard under the stairs. With a “Yes, Uncle Vernon” the boy walked to his cupboard, climbing inside and shutting the door behind him, which was promptly locked by Vernon. Apparently in his anger he’d completely forgotten to make Harry remove the interesting changes of Dudley’s look that he’d made, not that he minded. They’d probably remember it sooner of later, when they realized that they wouldn’t be able to change the fat pig’s hair back to normal by themselves. Then they’d have to let him out, just like all the other times this had happened.

“They never learn, do they?” Asked the voice of James Potter inside his head. This made Harry let a small, quiet laugh, and respond in his mind:

“Nope. You should know that by now, Dad.” 

His statement made James laugh, which the younger Potter soon joined in, though he made sure not to laugh out loud. It’d be a problem if the Dursleys heard him laughing to himself. He didn’t want to get beaten or something, after all. Or have them think that he was mental. Though Muggles probably would think he was, what with his Dad living inside his head and all. 

For as long as he could remember, his Dad, James Potter, who’d died when he was a one year old baby, had been ‘living’ inside his head. Well, maybe not exactly living, since he was dead and all, but that’s what they called it. Anyway, from his Dad he’d heard that he was a wizard, and a Heir to the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter, as well as the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. He’d also heard that he wasn’t actually related to the Dursleys, since Mrs Dursley’s sister and his Dad’s friend, Lily ‘Potter’ (née Evans) wasn’t actually his mother. She’d just carried his fetus and technically given birth to him, but he didn’t have any of her genes in him. You see, even though his Dad and Lily had gotten married, they’d never loved each other. They were just best friends. James was actually dating a man named Sirius Black, who later became his lover, and they ended up magically creating his fetus, which Lily, being their best friend, agreed to carry for them - since a wizard is unable to give birth to a baby, magically conceived or not. James hadn’t gone in the details about his conceiving , saying “I’ll tell you when you’re older”, but the point is that Sirius and James were his parents, not James and Lily like seemingly everyone thought. Lily had married his Dad only because the Old Goat had tricked them and made them get married. Apparently she was nice, though, as was his Daddy. Not that he’d ever met either Sirius or Lily, since the woman had died when Voldemort, a Dark Lord who’d started a war years ago, had come to their home to kill him because of some false prophecy that the Old Goat - or Dumbledore, as he was usually called - had made up,  and killed her and James who had tried to stop him. However, when he’d tried to kill Harry with a Killing Curse, it had somehow bounced back due to the protections they’d put on him and destroyed Voldemort himself instead. His Dad said that the guy wasn’t dead though, since apparently a part of his soul had been transferred to Harry’s scar - something James could detect since he was inside his head himself.  He’d also said that Voldemort probably had made other “Horcruxes”, as they were called, as well. Would probably try to come back eventually. 

Be it as it may, apparently the Wizarding World didn’t know that Harry had survived because of the protections, because they’d started to call him “The-Boy-Who-Lived” and worshipped him for defeating Voldemort. While it was flattering, Harry didn’t exactly like being famous for something which wasn’t exactly his doing, especially when he couldn’t remember the whole thing. And he just knew that people would often look at him as The-Boy-Who-Lived, not just Harry Potter. Which he found a little annoying. 

As for his Daddy Sirius, Peter Pettigrew, the guy who’d been their Secret Keeper in their Fidelius Charm - a spell which would take too long to explain - and betrayed them to Voldemort, made it look like Sirius had been the Secret Keeper and the so the traitor, and then promptly blown up the street they were in, making it look like Daddy had murdered him and some Muggles. In reality he had cut his finger off , transformed to a rat and run away. This had left the Ministry of Magic thinking that Sirius was a Death Eater and sending him to Azkaban, the prison of the Wizarding World, without a trial, something which James had been very angry about. He’d been in there since that day, making it ten years now, and they’d decided to get him out as soon as they got to the Wizarding World. Which would happen soon, as his eleventh birthday was in July 31st, and that day he’d get his Hogwarts letter. Hogwarts, Dad had told him, was a Wizarding School in Scotland, which his parents and their friends had attended. He couldn’t wait to get there, as he’d then finally be free of the Dursleys, but the only bad-side was that Dumbledore - or manipulative bastard, as Dad often called him - was its Headmaster, and according to him many people worshipped him like some god. Apparently they either didn’t know about his manipulations, or trusted too blindly in his “greater good” that they didn’t care what he did. Of course, there were people who didn’t, but he’d have to be careful in Hogwarts, especially since Dumbledore had apparently planned to use Harry as a pawn and weapon against Voldemort. Another reason for him to hate the man. 

But any of that is not important right now, as Harry was still in his cupboard in the Dursleys’ home, talking with his Dad inside his head.

“How long do you think it takes them to realize that they can’t return Dudley back to normal?” 

“Probably a day. Or two. They’ll probably think it’ll wear off by itself.”

“Yeah. They’re not exactly smart. Pigs.”

“Harry! You can’t insult pigs like that!”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“It’s okay, son. It’s easy to mistake them to pigs.”

“....I have a feeling that a parent shouldn’t say that.”

This statement was met with a laugh, before James said:

“True. But it’s not like anyone else will ever know. And last time I checked, you make statements like that yourself.”

“Where do you think I got my wit?”

“Probably from me. I’ve taught you well, son. Great prank, by the way.”

“I’ve learned from the best.”

“Hogwarts won’t know what hit them.”

“Do you think there’ll be any other pranksters in that school?”

“Should be. But we’ll see.”

“Yeah.”

“....Looks like we’ll be here for a while.”

In the end, Harry wasn’t locked in the cupboard for more than a week, as the morning of June 23rd shows Harry cooking in the kitchen, listening to Dudley’s whining of getting two birthday presents less than last year. 

“Spoiled brat. Even you wouldn’t have gotten so many presents on your birthday, and we’d have spoiled you rotten if Dumbledore hadn’t screwed everything up”, he heard James muttering in his mind, and couldn’t help smiling a little. It was nice to know that your parents really cared about you. It was a shame that they hadn’t gotten the chance to live together as a family, though. At least they’d soon get Daddy out of Azkaban. 

“Of course we care about you, Prongslet. You’re our baby boy. We’ve always loved you. And when we get Siri out of Azkaban you’ll be able to live with him. Then we’ll be a family again”, said James, his voice telling Harry that he was smiling.

“Dad, don’t read my thoughts”, was the boy’s embarrassed answer, as he tried to cover the slight blush he had in his cheeks.  
   
“Awww, is little Prongslet blushing?” teased the older of the two Potters, before bursting to laughter after hearing Harry’s quiet “Oh, shut up”.

What followed this seemingly normal morning of Dudley’s birthday was a trip to the zoo - with Harry getting taken with them for the first time in his life after Mrs. Figgs, a lady from the neighborhood, had called and told them she was unable to watch after him- and a incident with the vanishing glass of a boa’s tank, which Harry and James found quite humorous but which also resulted in Harry being locked in his cupboard yet again. Not that Harry minded, since with him being locked there for some time his Dad could take either a ghostly or a physical form without the fear of being seen by one of the Dursleys. A rather good thing, since in the latter form he could hug his son as much as he wanted. 

You see, after a few years of living inside Harry’s head James and Harry discovered that if he concentrated enough he could take a ghostly form which could be seen by others as well, and later they realized that if he wanted to and had enough energy he could also take a physical form, where he could actually touch things and people. After discovering this the first thing James had done was give his son a bone-breaking hug and cuddle him for the next two hours. Fate knows he’d missed touching his son and had wanted to give him a hug for ages.

Of course, the fact that Harry lived in a cupboard and there wasn’t much space for James to fit into without making noise was a bit of a problem, but with Harry being rather small for his age and James always hugging him close whenever he could, they’d managed it all these years. And they wouldn’t have to stand it for much longer, anyway, considering that Harry’s birthday would be in about four weeks. They both doubted that he’d be let out much before said day, though. Not that the Dursleys cared about it anyway.

As it turned out, they were quite right guessing that, since by the time Harry was let out summer holidays had started and there was just about a week to his birthday, July 31st. And on Tuesday morning, when Harry went to get the post, he found something which he’d waited for - his Hogwarts letter. 

“Oh. So they finally sent it. I guess they had to send it a few days earlier so that you could answer to it”, James commented, watching the letter from inside Harry’s head. 

Harry carefully opened the letter, making sure not to rip the envelope, and then read it in a hurry.  
He was, however, interrupted by his Uncle’s shouting:

“What are you standing there, boy? Checking them for letter bombs?” The man then chuckled at his own joke, while James sighed dramatically at the man’s bad sense of humor.  
“Someone really should teach the man to joke”, the man practically whined, as Harry walked to the kitchen, pretending that he hadn’t already read his letter and had just noticed it. He handed the other letters to Uncle Vernon, and sat in his chair while pretending to be just opening his letter. As he had guessed, he was soon interrupted by Dudley snatching said letter from him and shouting: 

“Look! Harry has gotten a letter!” which then caused Vernon and Petunia to turn pale and throw the boys out of the kitchen. 

After a few moments of eavesdropping the adult’s conversation, which didn’t really tell him anything he already hadn’t heard from James, Harry went back to his cupboard to have a inner conversation with his Dad, only to be interrupted by Vernon opening the door.

“Harry, you have really grown a bit too big for this cupboard, so I and your Aunt have been thinking that maybe you should move to Dudley’s second bedroom”, the whale of a man said, while smiling in a way that looked really painful.

“Hopefully it is. Thinking probably hurt them a lot, too.” Ignoring his Dad’s comment, Harry just shrugged his shoulders, gathering what little he owned, and then proceeded to carry it to his new bedroom - which was full of Dudley’s broken toys -, though he knew that it wouldn’t be his bedroom for long. After all, he wouldn’t be coming back after his trip to Diagon Alley, which they knew would happen soon, as Dumbledore would no doubt send someone to get him on his birthday. Which would make a good way to get to London, as Harry couldn’t get there by himself. For now, though, he’d keep acting like he really wanted to read his letter in order to not raise the Dursleys suspicion, and not send an answer back, so that they’d send more letters. It would be amusing to watch as Vernon would try to stop Harry from reading that letter. Especially since he already knew everything about the wizarding world. The Dursleys wouldn’t even know that they were being pranked. Oh yes, this would be funny.

Of course, they were quite right on that, as the following days were indeed quite funny, what with Harry accidentally stepping on Vernon’s face when he was sneaking out to get a letter - though he knew that the whale would probably be there waiting for him -, said man nailing the letter box with a piece of fruitcake, letter’s being handed to them with eggs by a milkman, and a huge amount of letters shooting out of the fireplace. The last one resulted in Vernon Dursley finally snapping and taking them to drive around, looking for a place to hide from the letters, before they finally ended up in a shack in the middle of the sea, where Harry had to sleep on the floor with a ragged blanket, with only a few seconds to his birthday. 

“They should have given you a better blanket”, he heard his Dad muttering, as he stared at the ceiling, trying to ignore Dudley’s loud snoring. Not that it was physically possible to ignore the sound that reminded him of a truck.

“You should shove him to the floor. And turn his hair to look like a rainbow. With ponies in it”, James commented, which made Harry roll his eyes. 

“Dad, just where did you get that-......What’s that sound?”

Indeed, there was a low rumbling sound coming from the outside, and it was becoming louder and louder. And as it grew closer, James could almost bet that it sounded very familiar. But it was impossible. The only thing that he knew made a sound like that belonged to his lover, who was still locked up in Azkaban. And Sirius would never have given his precious bike to anyone. So why did that thing sound exactly like it? 

He did not have the time to ponder on it longer, as during the next ten seconds the sound suddenly stopped, only to be replaced by a loud “boom” as something big and heavy crashed through the door, flew across the room and then crashed through the bedroom door. Which then caused one Petunia Dursley to show how loudly she could scream. The oddest thing, however, was not the thing crashing through the doors or the screaming that followed it. It was the fact that Dudley had slept through it all, and was still snoring loudly on the sofa. Which annoyed James greatly, to the point that he turned to his ghostly form, walked next to Dudley and said quietly to his ear: 

“Boo.” 

For some strange, unknown reason - which probably can be blamed on Lady Fate - this made Dudley stir enough to actually open his eyes, which then widened as James gave him his scariest and most maniacal grin and said: 

“Hello there, pig.” 

As one can guess, seeing a ghost say that to him made Dudley first become white as a sheet, and then fall to the floor in dead faint. And as James faded back to Harry’s mind, said boy was rolling on the floor, holding his stomach while laughing. 

“Move over yeh great lumps”, came an unfamiliar voice from what had moment’s before been a bedroom, though now it resembled a room full of scrap heaps. There was a sound of heavy footsteps, and then a gigantic man with a long mane of shaggy black hair and a matching beard stepped over a pile of wood that had once been a door, his black eyes that glinted like beetles locking to Harry.

“An’ here’s Harry! Sorry ‘bout the door. Musta stopped a bit too fast. Haven’t used tha’ bike since bringin’ yer to this lot,” the man said. 

“Let me guess; this man is Hagrid, isn’t he?” Harry asked his father, while eyeing the half-giant with interest, which he masked with a puzzled look. Something which was extremely easy for him, seeing that he was a Metamorphmagus and so could morph his face to look exactly like he wanted it to. Dad had said that he’d gotten it from the Black side of his family.

“Yep. Be careful. While he’s good-hearted and wouldn’t hurt a fly, Hagrid trusts the Old Goat blindly. He’ll tell Dumbles everything that doesn’t seem normal,” James warned his son, while keeping an eye on the man before him. It’s not that he didn’t trust Hagrid, but having him report to Dumbles too early on would make their plans more difficult to accomplish. At least it should be easy for them to get rid of him after shopping in the Diagon Alley. It was actually a good thing that it was Hagrid who came to escort them. If they were lucky, they could put their plan to action earlier than they expected. 

“I know. Don’t worry.”

What then followed was Harry acting perfectly clueless about everything, since he didn’t want anyone in here to know how much he knew, thus making Hagrid angry at the Dursleys, which then resulted in Vernon insulting Dumbledore - which, Harry thought, was the only good thing the pig had ever said - and the half-giant making Dudley grow a pig’s tail. The Dursley’s then hid to the ex-bedroom, and Hagrid and Harry went to sleep, with James going over the plan to Harry until he fell asleep.

The next morning Harry woke up to a sound of knocking from somewhere near him, and he lazily just tried to turn on his side and continue sleeping, but the sound just refused to cease. Finally he opened his eyes enough to see an owl knocking on the window, with a newspaper in its beak. 

“That’s a Daily Prophet owl. Just take the newspaper and ask Hagrid for money to pay for it”, James’s sleepy voice murmured, as he yawned inside Harry’s head, having woken up at the same time Harry did. 

Harry did as told, and when the owl started nipping at Hagrid’s coat for coins, he poked the man and said: 

“Hagrid, there’s an owl with a newspaper. I think it wants money.”

“Pay ‘im. There shoulda be coins in somewhere inside tha’ coat. Give ‘im seven knuts. Tha bronze ones. Golden ones ‘re galleons, silvery ones sickles. Seventeen sickles to a galleon, twenty-nine knuts to a sickle. It’s easy enough”, Hagrid muttered, before going back to sleep. Which then left Harry to find a small purse from the enormous coat, take seven knuts and gave them to the owl, who then flew away.  

“Why did he go back to sleep and leave you to pay to that owl? He’s the adult here!” Harry heard his Dad complaining, which caused him to roll his eyes with a comment: 

“You do know that you’re an adult, too, right?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t leave a kid who has been raised by muggles to pay a Prophet owl while going back to sleep.”

“Suuure. Whatever you say, Dad.”

James was about to argue, but their mental conversation was interrupted by Hagrid finally getting up and saying: 

“We gotta get goin’. We need ter fly ter London. We gotta lot to do.” 

“And he says that after going back to sleep?”

“That’s just like Hagrid.....Wait, fly?” 

Harry looked at Hagrid questioningly, and asked with a puzzled voice: 

“Umm, Hagrid..... What do you mean ‘fly’? How could we fly to London?” 

Instead of answering, Hagrid just motioned Harry to follow him and led him out of the shack. What was waiting for them outside surprised the boy greatly and made James turn angry: Sirius’s motorbike. 

“Come on, get on. Gotta hurry. Yeh sit behind me”, the half-giant said, completely oblivious to the death glares James was giving him from inside Harry’s head.

What then followed was a not-so-fun flight with Harry trying to ignore his Dad’s angry raging inside his head while holding onto Hagrid so not to fall, which was quite hard as the half-giant left him next to none space to sit on. This annoyed Harry to no end, since he was pretty sure that he’d have loved flying that bike if he hadn’t been so afraid of falling of it. Luckily to him the flight didn’t last too long, and they landed safely on the courtyard of some run-down looking house - which, James told him, was Leaky Cauldron, a very popular wizarding pub. They got off the back of the bike and Hagrid walked to the brick wall on the back of the courtyard, while Harry was watching anxiously. He knew what was behind that brick wall, and he couldn’t wait to see it for himself.

Hagrid pressed a few bricks in the wall and stepped back, the bricks starting to move and make some kind of hole. They then stepped through it, and after doing so Harry had to restrain himself from running off to look at everything in the street that he’d just arrived into. The half-giant beside him then started leading him along the street, while saying: 

“Harry, welcome to Diagon Alley.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it. I hope you liked the chapter. 
> 
> I'll try to post the next chapter in a few days, though let's see how long it's actually going to take this time. My family's moving soon, so I'll be a bit busy for the next few weeks. 
> 
> See you soon!


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slipping away from Hagrid and a visit to Gringotts, along with meeting a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, it's Childe here again with a new chapter of Changing The World. 
> 
> I don't really have much to say this time, other than the fact that I'm not sure when I'll be able to post the next chapter, since our family moving next Wednesday and we still have to pack. And I'm not sure whether or not the internet connection will work immediately. But I promise to post the next chapter as soon as I can, okay?
> 
>  
> 
> ~_____~
> 
>  
> 
> If I was Rowling, Ginny would have died in the Chamber and Dumbles would have died in the first book. Since this unfortunately didn't happen I'm obviously not Rowling and thus do not own the Harry Potter series. I only own Kyria.

As Harry walked amongst the crowd, making his way towards Gringotts with James giving him directions, he couldn’t help glancing at the windows of the shops he passed. He seriously wanted to run inside the shops and look at everything and buy everything he wanted, but right now he had to go to Gringotts to do the Blood Inheritance test and put their plan to action, so he had no time to linger in the shops. It had been hard enough to get away from Hagrid without raising suspicion. When the half-giant realized he was gone, the guy would no doubt start looking for him. He didn’t have much time.

 

**“Don’t worry. I doubt the first place Hagrid would look from is Gringotts. And I promise that once we’re done, we can go shopping”** , James assured him, before mentally pointing towards a huge building made of white marble, which in Harry’s opinion looked just like a bank should look. He glanced at the warning in the door before stepping in through the doors that the goblins guarding them had opened for them, taking a look around the large room on the other side. There were goblins sitting behind the counters, some counting diamonds, some talking with a witch or wizard.

 

**“Find a free counter and tell the goblin behind it that you want to do Blood Inheritance test. They should take you to a private room then. If we’re lucky, after they see whose heir you are they’ll take you to meet the Director of Gringotts London, Ragnock. Then we can put our plan to free Sirius into action”** , Harry heard his Dad say, and made his way towards a free counter that was as far away from other customers as possible. Upon getting there he coughed lightly, gaining the attention of the goblin sitting behind it and making it look at him.

 

“Greetings, Master Goblin. I would like to do a Blood Inheritance test. Would that be possible?” the young Potter Heir greeted with a bow the goblin who looked shocked at having actually been greeted respectfully. However, he seemed to get over his shock quickly as he said:

 

“Of course, Mister Potter. I am Griphook, and I shall take you to one of our private rooms for your Inheritance test immediately. Please follow me.” Then he led Harry through one of the doors in the sides of the hall to a long corridor made of the same marble as the outside of the building, before they stepped through another door to a meeting room of sorts. The room had plain white walls with no decoration, except for one sword in the right wall. In the middle of the room was a desk with one chair behind it, two on the side the door was, with a parcel and a knife put in the middle of it. Griphook gestured for Harry to sit in one of the chair on this side, and then sat on the opposite side of the desk, looking back at the boy.

 

“The Blood Inheritance test is fairly simple to perform. All you have to do, Mister Potter, is cut the middle finger of your wand hand with the knife before you enough to draw blood, and drop a few drops of it to the parcel. Your inheritance and possible magical abilities will appear on it, along with all possible blocks and charms someone could have casted on you. Now, if you would proceed”, Griphook said, handing both the parcel and the knife to the young Potter. Who then did as instructed and made a small cut to his right middle finger with the knife, before dropping a few drops to the parcel before him. Then he watched in fascination as the blood started to move as soon as it hit the parcel, forming words and eventually a long text, which read:

 

_Hadrian James Potter_

_Father(dom): James Charlus Potter_

_Mother/Father(sub): Sirius Orion Black_

_Birthgiver: Lily Rose Potter_

_Legal Heir of:_

_\- Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter_

_\- Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Peverell_

_\- Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Black_

_Properties:_

_\- The Potter Manor_

_\- 12 Grimmauld Place (The Black Manor)_

_\- The Peverell Manor_

_\- Two Potter Holiday Homes (Florida, Greece)_

_\- Two Black Holiday Homes (France, Australia)_

_\- One Peverell Holiday Home (Finland)_

_Vaults:_

_\- Potter Family Vaults (7)_

_\- Potter Trust Vault for the Heir_

_\- Black Family Vaults (6)_

_\- Peverell Family Vaults (5)_

_Special Abilities:_

_\- Metamorphmagus_

_\- Photographic memory_

_Blocks:_

_\- 60% Magic Block (broken in 1986)_

_\- Homosexuality Block_

_\- Metamorphmagus-ability Block (50% broken)_

_Placer of the blocks: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore_

_Charms:_

_\- Tracking Charm_

_\- Health-Monitoring Charm_

_\- Letter-blocking Charm_

_\- Magical being- alerting Charm_

_Caster of the charms: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore_

_Arranged engagement to Ginevra Molly Weasley by Molly Weasley (née Prewett) and Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore._

_A dark soul fragment detected in the scar in the forehead. To be disposed of immediately._

  
  


Both Harry and Griphook stared at the parcel for a few minutes, before James started shouting:

 

**“....THAT FUCKING OLD IDIOT PLACED A BLOODY GAY BLOCK ON MY SON?! THAT’S IT, I’M SO GOING TO RIP HIS BALLS OFF WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON HIM!”**

 

Harry, however, ignored his raging father and instead turned his attention to the goblin sitting in front of him, who looked quite surprised and angered by what he’d just found out. It was only several minutes later that Griphook coughed, put a neutral look on his face and said:

 

“Well, this is very interesting indeed. In fact, I would think that my superior should be informed of the things we’ve just discovered. Please wait a moment while I go talk to him.”

 

With these words the goblin hurried out of the room with the parcel, leaving Harry to sit in the office and listen his Dad’s rant of what he’d do to Dumbles once he got his hands on him. As the rant involved a very long list of extremely colorful words and creative ways to kill people which would make our eyes rot, said rant won’t be repeated here. But that’s not important.

 

The important thing was that Griphook stepped back to the room about ten minutes later, instructing Harry to follow him. After a walk around the same marble corridors as before Harry soon found himself knocking on two wooden doors, and, after getting a permission to enter, stepped inside. The first thing he saw after entering the room was an old goblin sitting behind a desk, looking at him with interest. He had a stern look on his scarred face, and an aura of someone not to be messed with. Harry knew at once who this goblin was even without James telling him, so he bowed and said:

 

“You must be Director Ragnock. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

 

Said goblin seemed surprised by being shown respect to, but, to his credit, he hid it quickly and said: “Yes, I am. It is indeed a pleasure to meet you, Mister Potter. Or perhaps I should say Mister Potter-Black, in the light of the information I just received. Speaking of which, there are matters that must be taken care of immediately. As I trust you’re aware, your Inheritance test has revealed several blocks and charms on you that one Albus Dumbledore has placed on you. Since we goblins strongly detest child neglect, which such thing counts as, we simply cannot allow those be left on you. Of course, we’ll also remove that soul fragment. We can discuss the rest of the matters to be discussed after that.”

 

“Thank you. I’m grateful for your help”, was the response Ragnock got, which he responded to by nodding and calling another goblin to take Harry to get those damn things off him.

 

About an hour later found Harry sitting back in Director Ragnock’s office after getting all of the blocks and charms removed and the Horcrux in his scar destroyed. Oh, and and burning all evidence that there ever was a marriage contract between him and Ginny Weasley. He was feeling quite tired, yet he listened to the Director’s explanation of how Dumbledore had apparently illegally taken money and some artefacts from his vaults.

 

“-and while the amount he has stolen wouldn’t be enough to even make a dent in one of the piles of gold in your vaults, I assure you that we won’t let it slide and will take whatever measures necessary to have everything that was stolen from your vaults returned to them.”

 

“Thank you, Master Ragnock. Now, there is one thing I’ve been wondering. I’m in the belief that both of my parents - or dominative father and birth giver, James Potter and Lily Potter née Evans respectively - made themselves a Will. However, I’ve never been here to the hearing of their Wills, so I’d believe that they’ve never been read. Could something be done about this?” Harry said, watching the goblin before him intently. It was important that those Wills were read, as his Dad had said that they made sure to mention that Peter was the Secret Keeper in their wills.

 

“Of course. In fact, I was just about to get to that. As it would seem, after Lord and Lady Potter’s death and you being brought to your so-called caretakers, Dumbledore sealed their Wills as your self-proclaimed guardian, for reasons currently unknown. However, as the Heir of your House and your Father, Lord Potter dead, it is possible for you to unseal the Will and have it read. Would you like to have the hearing now? We can arrange a second Will Hearing at later date for others mentioned in the Will as I’m sure you don’t want them to be called here now”, explained the goblin, getting a “Yes please” as an answer from the boy. The Director then called a goblin to bring the Will in question for them, with orders to hurry up.

 

A few minutes later previously mentioned goblin hurried back to the room, carrying two sealed parchments in his hands. He set them on the desk and, after being dismissed by Ragnock, walked out of the door, leaving them alone.

 

James stared at the parchments from inside Harry’s head, and commented:

 

**“Been awhile since I last saw those. Never thought that I’d be there to hear them being read. It’s weird, being in your own Will Reading.”**

 

_“Well, I doubt you never would have thought that you’d end up living inside your son’s head, either”_ , was Harry’s response, which caused the older Potter to laugh.

 

Before Harry could answer, Griphook coughed and asked:

 

“Now then, shall we begin?”

 

This question was answered with a nod, and so he unsealed one of the parchments and read:

 

_I, James Charlus Potter, being of sound mind and body hereby state that this is my last Will and Testament._

_For Sirius Orion Black, my one and true love, I leave one galleon as per his request as well as the guardianship of our son Hadrian James Potter-Black. I know you’ll raise Prongslet well, Padfoot._

_For Remus John Lupin I leave Vault number 1994, where you can get allowance of 300 galleons every month. Watch out after Harry with Sirius, will you?_

_For Peter Pettigrew, our Secret Keeper, I leave 1000 galleons if we died from natural causes. However, if we died because you betrayed us, I’ll leave you my eternal hatred and a promise to punch you in the face when you die. Hopefully in as painful way as possible._

_For Nymphadora Andromeda Tonks, I leave 1000 galleons and my old Auror book. You always wanted to be an Auror, Tonks, so maybe that can help you._

_For Lily Rose Potter, if you didn’t die with me, I leave 1000 galleons and those books from the Potter Library that you always wanted._

_For my son and Heir Hadrian James Potter-Black I leave the Lordships of the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter and Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Peverell, and everything that belongs to said Houses. I love you, Prongslet, and always will. Never forget that._

_Should Sirius be unable to take custody of Harry, he is to go to following people in following order:_

_Lily Rose Potter_

_Andromeda Tonks_

_Frank and Alice Longbottom_

_Andromeda Tonks_

_Remus John Lupin_

_Under no circumstances is he to go to Dursleys or a family of known Death Eaters. Though even the latter is better than Dursleys. Heck, anyone is better than the Dursley family. If my son somehow ends up going to them, you better be sure that I’ll punch the ones responsible for that in the face. Once they’re dead, that’s it._

_James Charlus Potter_

_28th of October, 1981_

_Witnesses:_

_Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore_

_Millicent Bagnold_

 

After the Ragnock finished reading the Will, he set it on the desk and then looked at Harry, who was now deep in thought.

 

**“....I think I need to change a few things from the Will. Should I show myself to Ragnock?”** James said, thinking up ways to reveal himself dramatically.

 

_“You should. But Dad, don’t give him a heart attack, okay? We need his help, or we’ll never get Daddy out of Azkaban”_ , Harry answered, knowing that mentioning his Daddy would stop James from killing the poor goblin.

 

Deciding that the Director may need some kind of warning, Harry coughed and said: "Master Ragnock, before we move on to the next Will, there is...someone....I’d like you to meet. Dad, if you please.”

 

The old goblin gave the young Potter a confused look, which, however, soon turned to a very shocked look when James first came out of Harry’s head as a ghost, and then turned himself solid. At seeing Ragnock’s face, he gave a small laugh and said:

 

“Long time no see, Master Ragnock. I see that you’ve met my son.”

 

As he said this, James hugged Harry and then got himself a chair out of nowhere, sitting in it.

 

“B-but.....How.....What.....” was said goblin’s response, before he appeared to collect himself, coughed and put somewhat plank mask in his face, before he said:

 

“Good day to you, Lord Potter. Now, I think an explanation would be appropriate.”

 

And so James and Harry gave him a short explanation about what the hell was going on, leaving fate purposely out of it. It wouldn’t do to have people (or goblins) know about the Lady Fate.... More people than necessary, that’s it. Anyway, by the end of this not-so-long explanation, Ragnock was staring at James, trying to process everything he’d just been told. Which ended up taking about five minutes.

 

When Director Ragnock had finally gotten over his shock and his head had processed everything the Potters had just said, James pointed out the few things he wanted to change about his Will - such as the fact that he didn’t want Remus to get that Vault since he abandoned Harry - they moved on to read the Will of Lily Potter née Evans, during which James put Harry to sit in his lap so that he could snuggle him.

It turned out that Lily had left Harry pretty much everything she owned, including her Vault, though she had left Sirius 100 galleons along with a cooking book, and a book about potions to Remus. The will also included a threat to rip off his dick to Wormtail should he have been the reason for her death, which caused James and Harry to laugh. Of course, Lily had also deemed it necessary to mention that no, Harry was not her child and yes, she had fully approved of James and Sirius having him. She had been the one to carry his fetus, for fuck’s sake.

 

In the end, it was only another hour later that Harry was led back to the main hall by Griphook, James having returned inside his head a few minutes earlier. Once they got there the boy searched the hall for Hagrid. He saw that said half-giant was just stepping through the doors, so he put on a relieved face and ran towards him while shouting “Hagrid!”

 

“Harry! There yeh are! Been lookin’ for yeh ev’rywhere. Wouldn’ know what ter tell Dumbledore if I lost yeh”, Hagrid said once he spotted Harry, looking extremely relieved.

 

Said boy put on his patented kicked puppy look, and said quietly: “I’m sorry, Hagrid. I got lost in the crowd, and tried to find you. Then I remembered that you’d mentioned Gringotts, so I asked people where to find it and they led me here. I thought that it’d be better if I just waited for you here. I didn’t mean to wander off, I promise.”

 

**“Acting worth of the Marauders. Good job, Prongslet. I’m so proud”** , commented James, who however was ignored as Hagrid had started to comfort Harry with “It’s not yer fault.” Then he led the boy to a counter, which just happened to be the one with Griphook sitting behind it, and told the goblin that they wanted to go to Harry’s vault. Of course, he didn’t mention anything about it being just his Trust Vault. Perhaps he didn’t know, or perhaps he had gotten orders to not mention it. However, that’s not what took the attention of both of the Potters. It was what the fact that he told Griphook that he had a letter from Dumbledore about “You-know-what in the vault seven hundred and thirteen”. Now, that’s mysterious. And very strange.

 

_“Why would Dumbles send Hagrid to get something so mysterious at the same time as he sends him to take me shopping? He should know that I’d hear and want to know what it was.”_

 

**“Maybe Hagrid was supposed to get it after he had taken you home... Or maybe he WANTED you to hear about it and feel intrigued. It might be a plan to “test” or “train” you.”**

 

_“What should we do?”_

 

**“Let’s let it be for now. Right now we have more pressing matters to take care of. Like get Siri out of Azkaban and prove his innocence.”**

 

_“Yeah. Let’s worry about that You-know-what later.”_

 

With that decision Harry followed Hagrid and Griphook out of the hall for the second time, thinking about things that he’d do once they were done with their business in Gringotts.

 

About fifteen minutes later found Harry walking out of the doors of Gringotts with Hagrid, who looked more than a bit sick. Apparently the half-giant hated those Gringotts carriages and got sick from them, which the young wizard simply could not understand as the ride was totally awesome.

 

“Might as well get yer uniform”, said Hagrid, while nodding towards a shop called Madam Malkin’s Robes For All Occasions. “Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off for a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? Hate them Gringotts carts.”

 

Harry nodded and watched as the man walked towards the entrance to the Alley, before he stepped inside the shop. As soon as he was through the door, a squat, smiling witch came to him and asked:

 

“Hogwarts, dear? Got the lot here - another young man is being fitted just now, in fact.”

 

Then the woman led him to the back of the shop, where Harry saw a blonde boy with pale, pointed face standing on a footstool while his robes were pinned up by another witch. The squat woman - who he guessed was Madame Malkin - put him to stand on a stool next to the blonde began to pin the long robe she had slipped over his head.

 

“Hello. Hogwarts, too?” Said the blonde boy, who had turned to look at Harry.

 

“Yeah”, was the reply said boy gave, looking the boy up and down. He was sure that the blond boy was a pureblood, though he didn’t know what family he belonged to. And it’d be pretty important to know that, since he couldn’t know if the boy was a son of one of the Death Eaters or something. So he then asked:

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Draco Malfoy. You?” The boy - Draco - answered, while looking at him up and down.

 

Harry looked at the boy for a moment, thinking whether or not he should tell the boy his surname.

 

**“So he is son of Lucius Malfoy, huh.... That guy is a Death Eater. Maybe it’s better that you don’t tell him just yet”** , James said, while trying to look some signs in the boy to show that he was as bad as his father.  This caused Harry to think for a few seconds more, before he answered:

 

“I’m Harry. Just Harry.”

 

Draco looked at him for a moment, before he asked:

 

“Are you a pureblood? I’ve never seen you before.”

 

“Yeah. Though I was raised around Muggles, so this is the first time I’ve been to Diagon Alley since I was a kid”, was Harry’s answer, while he wondered how the boy before him would have reacted if he knew whose son he was.

What he said made Draco look puzzled, as he said:

 

“Oh. That must really suck. But why did you live around Muggles anyway? What about your parents?”

 

“Dad is dead. And Daddy got thrown to Azkaban even though he was innocent”, the young Potter said with a slightly sad tone in his voice, despite the fact that his Dad was giving him a mental hug. His tone caused Draco to look a bit guilty, as he said with his head down:

 

“Oh. Sorry for asking. You have two fathers for parents, then?”

 

To this Harry nodded, and said:

 

“Yeah. Not that anyone knows, though. Everyone thinks Dad was in love with the woman who was my birthgiver and that she is - was-  my Mom.”

 

“Sorry. You must feel really bad for that”, Draco said, patting him on the shoulder. “By the way, have you ever flown on a broom? Do you play Quidditch?”

 

Harry smiled lightly at the boy’s attempt to change the subject, and answered:

 

“Well, I have never had a chance to fly, what with living with Muggles and all, but I sure as hell plan on doing that at the first chance I get. I’m a huge fan of Quidditch. What’s your favorite team?”

 

“The Irish National Team. Their Captain Aidan Lynch is simply the best Seeker any of the National Teams have. And you seriously don’t know what you’ve missed. Flying is awesome! You totally gotta get yourself a broom the first chance you get and go flying. You should owl me when you do, so we can go flying together. I can teach you”, Draco answered, getting more and more excited as he talked. By the end of his rambling he had an excited smile on his face, while he looked at Harry with bright eyes.

 

“Totally. I love the Irish Team too. And it’d be amazing to go flying together. It’s too bad that the first years can’t have their own brooms”, Harry said just as excitedly, before grinning. “But rules are made to be broken, so I’m sooo going to sneak a broom in. You?”

 

Now Draco grinned too, and said: “Count me in. I heard that school brooms suck. Besides, it’s a lot more exciting this way.”

 

Then the two boys launched to a discussion of brooms and Quidditch and practically everything related to it, occasionally laughing together like they’d known each other for years. Madam Malkin, who was still pinning Harry’s robes, smiled at seeing them chat so excitedly about things together, purposefully doing her work a little slower than was necessary.

 

However, their excited discussion was soon interrupted by a loud tapping against the window, and as they turned to look at it, they saw Hagrid standing outside of the shop, holding a cage with a snow white owl in it in his other hand, while he waved at Harry with the other one.

 

Draco then turned his questioning gaze at Harry, and asked:

 

“Who is that?”

 

“That’s Hagrid, the Keeper of Keys of Hogwarts. Apparently Dumbledore sent him to take me to get my things, since those Muggles I lived with weren’t exactly helpful with it. Not that he’s doing that good of a job, what with losing me once in the crowd when I might or might not have purposefully slipped away from him”, Harry answered nonchalantly, while taking a good look at the owl sitting inside the cage Hagrid was holding. He guessed that owl was a ‘present’ for him, though he was pretty sure that it was bought with his own money.

 

**“It most likely is. I doubt the Old Goat would spend any money on your present or have Hagrid buy you one”** , he heard James comment inside his head, which slightly surprised him since his Dad had been so quiet throughout the whole conversation with Draco.

 

“Let’s go check it at Gringotts after we’re done with shopping”, Harry responded in his mind, before turning his attention to Madam Malkin, who was telling him that his robes were done.

 

“So, I guess I have to go. I’ll owl you later. See you at the platform?” Harry said to Draco, stepping down from the stool. The blonde responded with a nod and said:

 

“Yeah. See you then. And don’t you dare to forget to write to me.”

 

Harry just laughed and paid to Madam Malkin for his robes, before stepping out of the shop with a final wave to his new friend. He then walked to Hagrid, who gave him the snow white owl and told him it was his birthday present, just as they had thought.

 

What then followed was them buying the various school equipment listed in the letter, and then going to the Ollivander's Wand Shop, where Harry had to try tens of wands before he finally found the right one, which apparently just happened to be the twin wand of the Jerk-Ass aka Voldemort. Not that either of the Potters really cared. They’d still find a way to kill old Voldy and right now they had more important things to do, seeing that Harry had successfully made Hagrid believe that  he was safely on his way back to Dursleys by bus. In reality they had sneaked back to the backyard of Leaky Cauldron - where Hagrid had gone to take a cup of butterbeer or two - and were waiting for the few wizards in the backyard to get past the wall so that they could steal - or “borrow” as James had said - Sirius’ motorbike. Well, technically they weren’t stealing it, since it wasn’t actually Hagrid’s, but whatever.  The point is, that once the backyard was empty of other people, Harry quickly got out of his hiding place and ran to the motorbike with James taking a physical form next to him, and trying to remember how the hell you got that thing to work.

Five minutes later they were more or less safely in the air, the Notice-Me-Not Charms in placed in the bike making sure that no one could see them. They then looked around for a place to hide it until they were done with checking Harry’s new owl - who the boy had named Hedwig - and when they found a suitable place in the park only a block away from the Leaky Cauldron, they landed the bike there. After that James just returned inside Harry’s head while said boy was testing his Metamorphagus abilities to change his hair - and eye color, and he then calmly walked through the Leaky Cauldron back to Diagon Alley.

 

After a quick trip back to Gringotts they found out that Dumbles had indeed placed a Tracking Charm and a Letter Diverting to Spell Caster Charm on Hedwig, which meant that he had intended to not only know who Harry sent letters to, but also be able to read all of his letters before Harry could read them himself. Of course, the Goblins made sure to break both of them, and now the bird was sitting on her owners shoulder, nipping his ear playfully. They then got the Lordship Ring of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter for Harry, as well as the Heir Ring to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Both of the rings worked as portkeys to the Manors of their respective Houses, and so Harry now had an effective way of travelling.   
After getting that out of the way, Griphook led Harry to one of the Potter Vaults, which was full of different kinds of ancient books, and with James’s help Harry found a trunk containing his Dad’s and Lily’s journals, and the boy took the ones from during all for years prior their deaths. These would no doubt held lots of very interesting information that could be used to get Sirius free once presented to the Head of the DMLE, Madam Bones.

Oh, they also got a magical purse that was magically expanded so that Harry could put as much money on there as he wanted and it still didn’t feel any heavier. More importantly, it was blood-keyed to Harry so anyone else wouldn’t be able to use it - well, except for maybe James who was a ghost and Harry’s father and so could use the thing, though he really had no need to do so.

 

In the end it was already late at night when they finally got back to the motorbike, where Harry touched the bike before using his Potter Ring’s portkey ability to get them to the Manor, where they would begin the state two of their plan to get his Daddy free. If everything went right, Daddy would be free by the time school started.

 

Yes, they would get Sirius free, and the Ministry would have no say in it. Not really.

 

After all, since when has anyone been able to stop a determined Potter?

 

 


	4. Chapter 3:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and James arrive at the Manor, meet portrait!Lily and explain some things before proving Sirius's innocence to Madam Bones and having his trial. Lemons between James and Sirius follow. Harry meets some Ancestors and later leaves for Hogwarts, resulting in finding some new friends and meeting the annoying git called Ron Weasley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, Childe here with the new chapter of CTW. Sorry for the long wait, I was without an internet connection for a while and was overall busy with moving. Let me tell you, moving from a home where your family has lived for the last 16 years is not easy even when three of your family members have already moved away. 
> 
> Anyway, like the chapter summary says, Sirius gets freed in this chapter (yay!), he and James will have some fun and Harry will leave for Hogwarts later. Oh, and he'll get some new friends. Have fun reading this chapter!
> 
>  
> 
> ~I do not own Harry Potter. All characters, things and places you recognize from the Harry Potter books belong to JK Rowling. I only own the plot of this story and Kyria. ~

“OUCH!” Was the sound that echoed in the courtyard of the Manor of the House of Potter as the young Heir of said ancient House fell on his ass after portkeying himself and his Daddy’s motorbike there. Harry stood up while rubbing his sore butt, and scowled as James’s loud laughter filled his head.

 

“Note to self: Learn how to use a portkey without falling on my own ass”, the boy muttered, before turning his attention to the Manor, though the sight of it left him with his jaw almost dropping on the ground.

 

First of all, the Manor was simply huge, with more floors than Harry cared to count, and countless windows of different sizes. Its black roof contrasted well with the completely white walls, and the lion gargoyles beside the front door made it clear which Hogwarts house the Potters usually belonged to. All in all, the Manor was quite majestetic where it stood in the middle of its beautiful garden, which seemed to be full of red flowers of different kinds. And Harry was pretty sure that he saw some Quidditch posts in the distance, something which made him want to run there right then and there to try flying on a broom. Unfortunately James decided that this was a good moment to act like a parent for once and told him to get inside so that they could put his things away and go to bed.

 

_“Meanie”_ , Harry muttered while he walked towards the front door.

 

**“Am not. You just seriously have to get some sleep. It has been a long day. And I’m so not going to let you fall off your broom because you fell asleep while flying.”**

 

_“Awwwwww. Come on, Dad!”_ Harry whined in his head while making mental puppy dog eyes at his father, who just rolled his eyes and said:

 

**“Stop with the eyes. I’ve seen them enough times on Siri’s face to become immune to them.”**

 

This caused Harry to pout as he opened the front door to the Manor, only to jump a bit when there was suddenly several pops from just beyond the door. When he stepped in, he saw five house-elves standing there, all of them wearing red sheets made to look like togas with the Potter family crest sewed in all of them.

 

“Master Harry is back! Master Harry has come home!” two of the elves shouted, while one of the others, who looked slightly older than the rest and was apparently a female, stepped forward and squeaked:

 

“Master Harry, I is Luper, the Head House-elf of Potter Manor. He is Trill,” he pointed to the elf in the far right, “she is Jassie”, the one next to the former, “he is Pike”, the one next to her, “ and he is Tran”, the last elf on the left. They all looked at him with their big eyes with something akin to adoration, and looked like him coming back was like a wish come true.

 

“Nice to meet you, Luper, Trill, Jassie, Pike and Tran. Now there are a few things I’d like to-....” Before Harry could continue, there was suddenly the familiar sound of James taking a physical form next to him and the house-elves looked like they all had a heart attack.

 

“Hi everyone. How are things in the manor?”

 

“DAD! Give a little warning before you do that! You gave them a heart attack! Look!” As he said this, Harry pointed at the house-elves who had frozen over and were staring at James with their eyes even bigger than normally. After seeing this, James laughed awkwardly and muttered:

 

“Erm....Ooops?”

 

“JAMES CHARLUS POTTER! LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID! YOU GAVE THE POOR ELVES A HEART ATTACK!” came a female voice suddenly from their right. A voice that James knew very well and which caused him to pale.

 

“Er........Hi, Lily?”

 

True to his words, in the wall to their right was the portrait of a redheaded witch with eyes of the same green colour that Harry usually kept his own eyes like. Her pretty face looked quite annoyed, and she was giving death glares at James. So the younger Potter wasn’t surprised when she opened her mouth and shouted:

 

“DON’T YOU ‘HI, LILY?’ ME! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, APPEARING OUT OF NOWHERE LIKE THAT? HOW ARE YOU LIKE THAT, ANYWAY? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!”

 

“You wound me, Lily-flower! Saying that I’m dead like that! Aren’t you happy to see me?” James responded in mock hurt, putting his hand to his chest like he had been hurt there. Seeing that Lily was about to continue shouting, Harry decided to interrupt and said:

 

“Um....Hi, Auntie Lily?”

 

This caused all angriness instantly disappear from Lily’s face as she turned to him and said with a sweet smile:

 

“Hi there, Harry dear. Lovely to see you after so long. How are you, sweetie?”

 

Said boy had to resist the urge to sweatdrop at seeing the 180 turn of her mood, as he answered:

 

“I’m fine. We just came from the Diagon Alley from getting my school things. And settling things at Gringotts. Hagrid took me, though he doesn’t know about the latter thing.”

 

“Oh, so you’re going to Hogwarts? Has it really been so long since I died? Oh dear,” Lily said, before she seemed to have a sudden realization and continued, “Tell me, who have you been living with? I don’t see anyone besides you and James here.”

 

“Dumbles placed me with the Dursleys after he got Daddy sent to Azkaban even though he was innocent. Don’t worry, Dad has been living inside my head ever since then”, was the nonchalant response she got, which seemed to make her angry once again as she exclaimed:

 

“HE WHAT?! HOW DARE HE? WE PRECISELY SAID THAT YOU SHOULDN’T BE BROUGHT ANYWHERE NEAR THOSE IDIOTS! AND HOW DARES HE TO SEND MY BEST FRIEND TO AZKABAN?!”

 

The volume of her voice caused everyone in the front hall - where they were in right now - cringe, including the house-elves who had finally come out of their shock, and by the end of her rant James said:

 

“Erm, Lily, would you please calm down. I know you’re angry, but we’re going to make him pay later. Now we gotta get Sirius out of there. Besides, you’re scaring the house-elves.”

 

This made Lily instantly lower her voice, as she glanced at said elves and saw that indeed, they seemed to cower a little from her screaming. So she took a deep breath and asked:

 

“So, I take it you have a plan to get him out?”

 

“Yep. A plan worth of the Marauders. But we’ll discuss that tomorrow, since Harry looks like he’ll fall asleep on his feet if he doesn’t get to bed”, James answered, gesturing to his son with his right hand. “Besides, I can’t keep up the physical appearance much longer. I’ve used it too much today.”

 

Lily frowned, but nodded after a glance at Harry who was currently trying his best to stay awake. She then watched as James first told Luper and Trill to take Harry’s school stuff to the boy’s study room, before promptly picking the boy up and carrying him up the stairs to his bedroom in the fourth floor. He set Harry on the bed, changed his clothes to pyjamas and then put the blanket over his son’s small body, giving him a kiss on the head as he did so. Then he watched him fall asleep before slipping back into the boy’s head, falling asleep almost as soon as he did so. It had been a long day, and the next day would be even longer. He dreaded the moment he’d have to explain everything to Lily. That would involve lots of shouting and threats to certain people’s manly parts.

  
  


-_______-

  
  


The next day was, like James had predicted, extremely tiring and full of shouting by Lily, who gave the word “furious” a new meaning after she heard how Dumbledore had and would have fucked Harry’s life up. Her list of extremely colorful words and ways to kill the Old Goat was very impressive. Of course, James had made a point to shield Harry’s ears once she started her fifteen minutes long screaming rant, as he was pretty sure that an 11 year old boy shouldn’t know that many curse words. Nevermind that his son had listened his own furious rants before.

 

After Lily had been informed about all of their plans, with her giving them a few suggestions here and there, they made Harry eat some lunch before Lily put James to tell her everything about Harry’s childhood, daring him to forget to mention about even the smallest detail, such as what his first prank was - he had made Dudley’s favorite toy run away from him everytime the pig in a wig tried to touch it - and what was his favorite bedtime story - the one about how his parent’s met. Then she made a point to berate him for “corrupting her poor adorable godson”, which James responded by pointing out that she would have taught him to prank Dudley too - he got a glared at for that one. Harry had fun watching James and Lily interact, with Lily scolding James and his Dad laughing in response. A few times all three of them burst to laughter at the same time, when they were telling about a particularly funny prank or they talked about what people’s reaction to certain things would be. Such as Dumbledore’s reaction to the fact that his plans were going to get completely screwed without him even knowing it before it was too late. They got a particularly good laugh out of that one.  

 

In the end they spent the whole day talking to each other and discussing everything. They decided that it’d be best if Harry sent a letter to Director Ragnock asking him to set up a meeting with Madam Amelia Bones, Head of the DMLE, so that they could give her the evidence of Sirius’s innocence and get him a trial. After all, it’d be weird if Harry sent a letter directly to her and requested a meeting at the Manor, and they couldn’t afford to meet her at the Ministry since that would raise suspicions. So Lily and James put Harry to write that letter to Ragnock the same evening after dinner, since they wanted Sirius out of Azkaban as soon as possible. Preferably even sooner.

 

And those were the events that led to one Madam Bones finding herself in a meeting with one young Harry Potter at Gringotts after she had gotten a letter from Director Ragnock telling her to come to a meeting with him, only for him to step out of the room as soon as she arrived.

It would have been an understatement to say that she was puzzled. Why would Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived who was supposed to be living with his Muggle relatives, request a meeting with her? And why would it be arranged by the Director of Gringotts, of all people? After she asked the boy these questions, all she got was an mischievous grin before suddenly there was some weird noise, and the ghost of one James Potter appeared right next to her, saying:

 

“Hi there, Amelia. It has been a while. How are you?”

 

This caused her to almost get a heart attack, even more so after the seemingly-ghost made himself solid and sat down on a chair opposite her, picking Harry up and setting him on his lap.

 

“W-what......how.....why......huh......” was all she could say as she stared at the man that she was very sure had been dead for the last ten years.

 

“Oh, I kinda got stuck inside my son’s head after I died, dunno why, and later discovered that I can take both ghostly and a physical form. Very useful,  I say. I can even use magic. Amazing, isn’t it? A lot better than being a portrait or a normal ghost, I’d say. But that’s beside the point, since we have a lot more important matters to discuss. Like the fact that my poor dear Siri got sent to Azkaban without a trial when he was completely innocent”, James said cheerfully, though his tone lost its cheerfulness at the end, as he frowned. It took a moment for his words to register in her brain before she asked:

 

“Wait, what are you talking about? What do you mean ‘without a trial’? And he can’t be innocent. He was your Secret Keeper, and he betrayed you to You-Know-Who.”

 

Much to her surprise both Harry and James rolled their eyes as the older of the two said:

 

“Honestly Amelia, do you think I don’t know who my own Secret Keeper is? Our Secret Keeper wasn’t Sirius, it was Peter Pettigrew. And yeah, Sirius never got a trial. Got shipped straight to Azkaban after his capture. Which we don’t like and so we want you to give him a trial and prove his innocence.”

 

Amelia’s eyes widened as the meaning behind those words registered to her, and then she grew angry. Sending an innocent man to Azkaban was unforgivable, especially without a trial. She’d make sure to solve this thing. However, she couldn’t just declare Sirius Black innocent without proof. When she told this to the Potters, they just rolled their eyes as Harry said:

 

“Of course we know that. That’s why we’ve brought you evidence of it.” While saying this, the boy gave her two journals and two parchments, “Here are two of Dad’s and Auntie Lily’s journals, as well as copies of both of their Wills. That should be enough proof, especially if you make Daddy take veritaseum for the questioning at the trial.”

 

Madam Bones looked at the pieces of evidence just given to her, before something the boy said made her ask:

 

“What do you mean by ‘Auntie Lily’ and ‘Daddy taking veritaseum’? Isn’t Lily Potter your mother and Sirius Black your godfather?”

 

At this James just sighed and handed her another piece of parchment, this one containing the results of Harry’s Blood Inheritance Test. After reading it her eyes widened, and she asked James to explain the whole thing about Harry’s “mother”.

 

And so they ended up spending next half an hour with James telling Amelia all about the relationship between him and Sirius, how he and Lily never had anything beyond platonic between them and how Dumbledore had convinced them to marry “in order to protect Sirius and my Heir”. Of course, he left some parts out, and Amelia swear an unbreakable vow to never tell any of this to anyone without his and Harry’s content, except for what was written in their Wills.

 

In the end the trial for Sirius Black was held a week and a half later - Madam Bones pulled some strings to speed up the process - with him being questioned under veritaseum and Amelia reading out the part of the Wills and journals that contained evidence of his innocence. Of course, no one was told anything about Harry paying him a visit or James living inside his head - that would have ruined their plans - and they ended up agreeing to not less the press into the trial, with a Ministry officer giving an interview after it. This way they could prevent the press from learning about Harry’s real “mother”, as Harry, James and Lily had decided that it’d be for the best to keep it a secret until after Harry had started his first year at Hogwarts. Then the Old Goat wouldn’t have time to make new plans to get Harry under his thumb. Besides, they wanted to be able to see his face when he heard about everyone learning about it. And he wouldn’t know about it being discovered at the trial, since he had been banned from coming for “failing to make sure the convict got the trial he deserved” thanks to a few precisely pulled strings. Naturally everyone in the Wizengamot were bound by an unbreakable vow they’d said when they took up the position to not give away any information that was given there to anyone, including old Dumbles.

They had eventually agreed that it’d be best if Madam Bones took Sirius to St Mungo’s for  a checkup after he was proven innocent - for there was no way in hell that he wouldn’t be with the evidence of his innocence they had - and then took him to Potter Manor to meet Harry. After all, it would be extremely suspicious if Harry went to the trial, since the last time he had met Sirius was when he was one year old and was supposed to not know anything about the man. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was anything he could do at the trial, so it was only better this way. James didn’t seem to think that way, though, since he had whined about it until the trial, when he had instead decided that pacing around Harry’s head was a good way to get over his nervousness.

 

_“Dad, stop pacing in my head.”_

**“I can’t help it! What if they don’t let him free after all? What if he has gone insane? What if he has to stay at St Mungo’s for longer than just for a checkup? What if-”**

 

“Auntie Lily, Dad is overworrying again! And he is pacing in my mind!”

 

“JAMES CHARLUS POTTER! STOP WORRYING AND PACING AROUND INSIDE POOR HARRY’S HEAD! AND DON’T EVEN TRY TO SAY THAT YOU AREN’T PACING, SINCE I KNOW YOU ARE!” Came then his Auntie’s voice from somewhere around the house where she had gone to visit Dorea Black’s potrait.

 

**“Harry! How could you set your Auntie on your poor father?** ” James asked with mock hurt, giving Harry his patented kicked stag look, which Harry seemed to be completely immune to - he always said that his kicked puppy dog eyes were a lot cuter.

 

_“Because your pacing was annoying and you were starting to panic?_ ” Harry responded while rolling his eyes, before glancing at his wristwatch. The trial should have ended half an hour ago - not that he had told that to his Dad - so Sirius and Madam Bones would be here soon via the portkey they had given Madam, since the Manor had anti-apparition wards for anyone that wasn’t linked to them. Which she wasn’t.

 

Suddenly the wards alerted him to someone entering the grounds, so he stood up from where he was sitting on the sofa of the entrance hall and listened to the sound of someone whining about something that was becoming louder and louder. Then the front door to the manor opened, and in stepped Madam Bones and a man with black shoulder length hair, gray eyes and a bit malnourished appearance - which Harry guessed had been much worse just a half an hour earlier before his trip to St Mungo’s and getting a hell lot of nutrition potions and what not. Sirius Black, his own Daddy.

 

“HARRY!” his shout echoed in the hall as Sirius tackle hugged his son, holding on for dear life, as if he’d disappear if he let go.

 

“Hi Daddy”, Harry said to him, hugging the man back just as tightly. Now he finally had his only living parent with him, and he didn’t want to let go.

 

“Well then, Harry, Sirius, I think my work is done here, so I’ll be taking my leave. Good day”, Madam Bones said with a smile on her face before she closed the door behind her, making her way outside of the grounds in order to apparate home. Though neither of the two males seemed to notice this, as they were still hugging each other, neither willing to let go first.

 

Of course, James had other ideas.

 

“What’s this? Don’t I get a hug?” Came a voice behind Sirius, as he felt SOMEONE pat him on the ass. He let go of Harry and whirled around with wide eyes, and saw his dead lover James Potter standing there, with his usual smirk on his face.

 

“James....? What...how.....?” Sirius asked, reaching out to touch the man’s face.

 

“Oh, to put it shortly I kind of got stuck in Harry’s head after I died, and discovered that I can take both ghostly and physical form. But that’s not important. Now about that hug...?” James said with a shrug, without letting his trademark smirk fall of his face.

 

That was all it took for Sirius to jump to tackle hug James, smashing his lips to the man’s in a fierce and desperate kiss which the other eagerly responded to. After a moment James then decided to take control, biting Siri’s bottom lip for entrance, which the other eagerly granted. He then plummeted his tongue inside the other’s mouth, tracing every corner of it which he knew by heart.

 

Harry watched his parents snog each other for about a minute before he decided that he seriously didn’t want to see them fucking and went off in search of his Auntie. Or perhaps he could write a letter to Draco. He hadn’t done that in a while.

 

By the time Harry had made it to his Aunt, his parents had decided that clothing was annoying and were currently tugging each others shirts off while trying to keep snogging at the same time. Something that they somehow managed to do, as soon they both were shirtless and James had taken to biting and kissing Siri’s neck, causing the man to moan. He then picked Sirius up, with his lover wrapping his legs around his waist, and carried him to the nearest couch, setting him down. He then set back to biting and kissing the mans neck, before beginning to trail down the other’s body, giving kisses all the way down, before getting to the level of the man’s pants. Deciding that said pants were very much annoying and in the way, he grabbed his wand and made them disappear, leaving his dear lover completely naked, which said man showed great displeasure of as he grabbed James’s wand from his hand and in turn made them man’s pants vanish. This caused James to smirk and grab his cock, giving it a small, teasing lick on the head which caused Sirius to moan. Said man moaned even more after the top of the two started licking his dick properly up and down, occasionally taking it in his mouth and giving kisses to it. At the same time he traced the man’s hole with his finger, before finally pushing it in, making Sirius gasp at feeling the once so familiar feeling in his ass for the first time in ten years. Oh, how he had missed it.

After a few minutes James pushed another finger in, starting to first scissor them and then push them in and out in order to stretch him more. He still hadn’t stopped licking and kissing Siri’s dick for the whole time he had been stretching him, and the oh so delicious moans that the man was emitting were starting to make his own member feel painful. That didn’t last for long though, as Sirius let out a low growl and said:

 

“James....fuck me. Now.”

 

Not one to deny such request, James pulled his fingers out of that delicious ass, and instead placed his now painfully hard dick at the man’s entrance, giving him a small kiss while doing so. Then he started to slowly push in, gasping at the familiar feeling of warm tightness around his dick. While he did this, Sirius let a small whine but otherwise was unfazed by the slight pain he felt, having gotten used to it long time ago.

When James had his whole dick inside, he paused for a moment to let Sirius adjust to the feeling of having a cock inside him again. After a nod and a kiss from his lover he finally started to move, slowly picking up speed as the man beneath him moaned and groaned.

 

“Faster”, Sirius demanded, before moaning again as James hit his prostate. Eager to please, James picked up speed again, now purposefully trying to hit the man’s prostate with every thrust. Soon he began to feel slight bubbling in his lower stomach, and grabbed his lover’s dick, beginning to rub it up and down, which made his moans and groans even louder. Which didn’t help in making him last longer.

 

Suddenly, without a warning, Sirius came to his hand, letting out a very loud moan. This in turn made the muscles in his ass tense up, which pushed him over the edge and made him come inside his lover with an even louder groan. He then pulled out of him and slumped next to Sirius on the couch, giving a satisfied sigh. As Sirius snuggled to him, he wrapped his arms around his lover and pulled him closer.

 

“Love you”, murmured Sirius sleepily, snuggling his face to James’s shoulder. This caused said man to smile as he answered quietly:

 

“Love you too.”

 

Then they both closed their eyes and promptly fell asleep, still laying on the couch stark naked.

  
  


Elsewhere, the young Heir of the House of Potter stopped his discussion with his Aunt about Hogwarts houses long enough to realize that the sound of his parents fucking each other had finally quieted, and smirked. Oh, the amount of blackmail material he had gotten from them forgetting to put silencing charms. Or to check that he had actually left the room. Which he was pretty sure they hadn’t done.

 

“It seems those two are done. Honestly, how could they forget to put silencing charms? From the amount of noise they made I bet the whole Manor heard them”, Lily commented, noticing the quietness compared to the noise from just a few minutes prior.

 

Harry nodded absentmindedly, before stating that he was going to write a letter to his friend. He then made his way to his new study room - which was next to his bedroom - and started to write a letter to Draco. He should ask whether or not Draco’s Mom or Father was going to allow him to bring a broom to Hogwarts and shrink it for him. It’d be no fun to sneak one there alone.

 

-________-

  
  


Some hours later found James and Sirius waking up to Lily’s loud shouting, as she was screaming at them for fucking on the couch without putting up silencing wards and then sleeping there naked.

 

“-SLEEPING NAKED LIKE THAT WITH YOUR 11 YEAR OLD SON IN THE HOUSE! AND FORGETTING TO PUT UP SILENCING WARDS! DO YOU REALIZE HOW LOUD YOU WERE? ARE YOU TRYING TO DESTROY POOR HARRY’S SWEET INNOCENCE? ANYWAY, WHY THE HELL WERE YOU FUCKING ON THE COUCH OF THE ENTRANCE HALL? THIS PLACE HAS DOZENS OF BEDROOMS-” could be heard around the house as she screamed, while Harry watched his Daddy ask Trill to bring him a pain relieving potion, while his Dad was putting his pants on.

 

In the end it took fifteen minutes for his parents to get dressed and for Lily to stop screaming, during which they moved to sit in one of the “living rooms” of the Manor, so that they could explain everything to Sirius. It was also during that time that Harry decided to pull the “innocent 11 year old” trick, and asked Sirius innocently while looking at the odd way he walked:

 

“Daddy, why are you walking funnily?”

 

This caused both James and Sirius to freeze while Lily burst to laughter - she was walking with them via portraits. She laughed even harder as both of the parents tried to find some explanation suitable for an eleven year old to tell Harry, while Harry batted his eyes innocently. That is, until his poker face broke and he burst to laughter himself. It took the older males a few moments to realize that Harry had done that on purpose, but when they did, they started laughing too.

 

The rest of the day was then spent explaining everything to Sirius, with Harry deciding that he wants to sit on his Daddy’s lap in order to get cuddled. Which then resulted in Lily and James having to repeat half of what they had said because Sirius was too busy cuddling his son to listen. Which was so adorable that even Lily didn’t scold him for it. Harry for his part realized that he enjoyed being cuddled and made a point to do so whenever possible. Which neither of his parents minded about. Only one sad about this was Lily, who, being a portrait, couldn’t cuddle him even if she wanted to and so had to watch them cuddle happily from the side. Luckily she wasn’t completely without comfort, as they discovered that she had hooked up with one of the other portraits of the manor, Rex Potter, after her death. As it turned out, Rex was the little brother of James’s father Charlus Potter who had died at the age of twenty - after annoying a lot younger Voldemort - and had taken a liking to Lily the moment they met after she became a portrait. It had taken a while for the redhead to warm up to him, but once she did, they had started dating and had been happily together since then. Apparently portraits had lots of free-time.

 

Harry also got introduced to the resident ghost of the Potter Manor named Sagitta Potter, Sagi for short, who was one of the Potter ancestors - great-great-great-great-great-great aunt or something like that - and had taken to randomly appearing out of nowhere when people were talking, and doing some pranks to people. The young Potter Heir found her extremely funny and cool, and so he could often be seen having a conversation with her over the rest of the summer. They also played a few pranks to Sirius and James when they were having sex somewhere - which was almost everyday - and even got a few of those times on video, though no one had an idea of where they got the video camera and how they got it to work in a magical household, as muggle technology wasn’t supposed to work around magic. And after seeing the grins on their faces James and Sirius definitely didn’t want to know what those videos were for. They guessed blackmail, which proved to be true after Harry used them to get Sirius to buy him a broom  - Nimbus 2000 - and shrink it for him to sneak it to school. When Lily then commented that he would have gotten it even without blackmailing his fathers, the boy just grinned and asked:

 

“But where would the fun be in that?”

 

This question had caused Lily to sigh and Rex, Sagi and Sirius to burst into laughter, while James commented in his head that he was very proud of him, as that was a very Maraudeish thing to do.

 

The rest of the summer went quickly for Harry between planning pranks, flying on a broom with his Daddy and going over their plans. All too soon - for everyone but Harry, that’s it - it was the day before September 1st, and the young wizard was practically bouncing on the walls, not able to hide his excitement. He couldn’t wait to see Draco again and get sorted at Hogwarts, and hopefully get some new friends. Not to mention prank people (*cough*Snape*cough*).  

James, while being excited about his baby boy going to Hogwarts, was also sad since he had to part with Sirius - who could not come with them as Paddy as he had to plan how to reveal the truth about Harry’s “mother” to public with Madam Bones. So it was not surprising to anyone living in the Manor that Sirius and James spent almost the whole day in the master bedroom with silencing charms up - they had learnt after a few times of Lily shouting their ears off to remember to cast them before fucking - and so the son of the two ended up spending the day with Lily, Rex and Sagi, chatting about Quidditch and flying. Surprisingly his Auntie didn’t say anything about him sneaking a broom to Hogwarts, which, when he asked the reason for it, was explained by his fathers doing the same thing when they were his age. Besides, Lily knew that his new friend Draco - who he had switched letters with over the summer - was also sneaking a broom to school, and didn’t have a heart to tell him off for wanting to go flying with his friend.

 

As the next morning came and Sirius levitated Harry’s trunk down the stairs to the entrance hall, the boy himself ran around the Manor saying goodbye to all of the paintings that he had talked with over the summer, who in turn wished him luck and were very sad that they wouldn’t be seeing him until Christmas.

 

“It’ll be so quiet in here once you and Jamie are gone”, said his grandmother, Dorea Potter née Black, who he had made a point to visit last, as he knew that saying goodbye to her and his gramps Charlus Potter would take the most time - besides Lily, of course.

 

“Don’t worry, grandma, we’ll be back during christmas. And we’ll send lots of letters to Daddy, who can read them to you”, Harry said, smiling sweetly at the portrait. He then heard his grandfather to laugh, and turned to look at him, as he said:

 

“No doubt we’ll be getting lots of letters from Minerva, stating how you’ve blown up a toilet or turned the entire school’s hair blue or something akin to that. I’m sure James will make sure of that.”

 

At this Harry just laughed and then said with a grin on his face:

 

“Of course I wouldn’t blow up a toilet, Grandpa. That’d be horribly ordinary. Though thanks for the idea of turning everyone’s hair color. I was just thinking of what to do for the first prank.”

  
  


This conversation was followed with Harry saying goodbye to Lily, Rex and Sagi, who were all even more sad to see him go, while they were also happy that he was finally going to Hogwarts - even with its stupid Headmaster. So it was no surprise that it took about an hour before he, Sirius and James - who was sleeping inside his head after fucking with Daddy the whole night - were safely just outside of King’s Cross, where Sirius had apparated them to from the Manor, seeing that Harry couldn’t apparate by himself and James was too tired to do so. After a long and tight hug from his Daddy and watching him apparate away, Harry pushed his trolley, with his trunk and Hedwig in it, through the doors to the station, before making his way towards platform 9 ¾.

 

When he got there, he saw a family of redheads seemingly about to go through the wall to the platform, since the plump woman - who must have been their mother - was practically shouting something about Muggles.

 

**“Honestly, how obvious can you be about wanting someone - you -  to notice that you’re wizards and about to go to the platform?”** he heard his Dad say with a sleepy yet irritated voice, which told Harry that he must have been woken up by the woman’s shouting. “That’s Molly Weasley with her kids. Obviously she’s been ordered by Old Goat to get you to the platform and so make you trust them.”

 

_“Do you think her kids know about her plans?”_ Harry asked, taking a good look at them. Two of the boys seemed to be twins, then there was one guy with glasses - who was the only one with new robes - and a lanky boy who was a few inches shorter than the rest. Then there was the only girl of the children with long hair, who seemed to be whining at her mother about something. All of them had red hair and at least some freckles, and all of them were tall, though the girl was a bit shorter than Harry.

 

Apparently Molly Weasley was finally done shouting about Muggles, as she now ushered the guy with glasses to go through the wall, and after he was gone, told one of the twins to do the same. However, it seemed that she could not tell them apart, as they were able to successfully trick her to believe the other was the other, which caused both Harry and James to smirk. It was apparent that those two were pranksters. And if you were a prankster, you didn’t just blindly believe whatever bullshit people told you to make you follow them. And you definitely didn’t listen to authorities. Which meant that there was a good chance that those two didn’t exactly support Dumbledore, and so would believe them once they showed them proof of his lies. Which meant that Harry could actually befriend them and prank people with them. All the better.

 

After the last of the group of redheads had passed through the wall, Harry quickly walked towards it, not even pausing before he went through. His Dad had told him about it enough times for him to already know that yes, it was there and he wouldn’t simply crash into a wall.

On the other side the first thing he saw was a red train with the text “Hogwarts Express” in it, and once he turned to look at the platform itself, he saw it was full of students and their families saying goodbyes to each other. Something which he had already done.

 

Deciding that he might as well get a compartment before finding Draco, Harry started walking through the crowd of wizards and witches in search of an empty compartment, passing a boy who had lost his toad as he went. He ended up finding a free compartment from the end of the train, where he proceeded to try to lift his trunk there, only for it to fall painfully on his foot. Harry let out a pained yelp and mentally glared at his Dad, who had a fun time laughing at his misery.

 

“Need help?” came suddenly a voice from his right, and as he turned to look at the speaker, he saw that it was one of the twins he had seen in the group of redheads. He looked at him up and down, before deciding that he really needed help and said:

 

“Yeah, please.”

 

At this the redhead grinned and then shouted over his shoulder to someone:

 

“Hey Fred! C’mere!”

 

The guy’s twin, Fred, came over, and together they raised Harry’s trunk to the compartment - during this, Harry noticed that the guys seemed to have nicely toned muscles under their shirts.

 

**“Oooh? Already thinking how they look without their clothes, are you, Prongslet? My my my...”** he heard the teasing voice of his Dad say, which he promptly ignored in favor of not starting to blush.

 

Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice say “Harry?” behind him, and when he turned around, he saw his friend Draco Malfoy standing there, his trolley next to him.

 

“Hi, Draco!” Harry greeted his friend with a smile, while brushing some sweat from his forehead with his hand. Unfortunately, this caused his scar - which, although it had faded a bit, had yet to disappear - to be seen by both Draco and the twins, who gasped and grinned at it respectively.

 

“Blimey”, said the other twin, who Harry guessed was Fred, “Are you?”

 

“He is”, said the first one, whose name Harry still hadn’t heard, “Aren’t you?”

 

Harry just raised his eyebrow as an answer, showing that they would be a bit more specific.

 

“Harry Potter”, both of the twins answered his silent question.

 

“Well, actually it’s Harry Potter-Black, but yeah, that’s me”, said boy answered with a shrug, which then made the twins look like they wanted to comment that with something. However, before they had a chance, they were interrupted by Draco:

 

“Wait, so that Daddy of yours is a Black? You’re the Heir of the House of Black? We’re little cousins?”

 

Harry turned to look at him again, and said:

  
“Yup. Though would you mind if we continued this in the train? I’d rather not explain this in a platform full of people.”

 

The other boy just nodded as a response, before turning his gaze at the two redheads, who were currently busy looking at Harry up and down. Seeing where his blonde friend was looking at, the boy in question turned around, and, noticing their gazes on him, decided that he should make them turn their attention away from looking at his body:

 

“Say, are you two pranksters?”

 

The response he got to that was two identical heads turning to the side, and a question:

 

“How did you know?”

 

“Well, as they say, a prankster knows another prankster. Or something like that”, he answered with a grin, glancing at the smirking Draco, and made a silent agreement with the boy: they would try to get those two to sit with them on the compartment. However, they didn’t even need to ask, as they suddenly heard the twins say:

 

“Hey, mind if we sit with you? We wanna hear all about your pranks. We’re Fred and George Weasley, by the way.”

 

Of course, both of the first year boys readily agreed to that, and Draco proceeded to introduce himself. Since their mother called the two red heads over to say goodbye, they said they’d join Draco and Harry once they were done. And so, the two first years climbed to their compartment, and took the seats by the window, starting a discussion about Quidditch. They heard the Weasley family talking just outside of their window, but since neither of them was exactly interested in their conversation, they pretty much ignored it. During their chatting Harry started to wonder why his Dad was being so quiet, and soon discovered that the man-ghost had fallen asleep yet again. Apparently he was still too damn tired to stay awake. And it wasn’t like Harry was going to be in any danger anytime soon, so he could take a little nap.

 

Soon the twins opened the door to the compartment, and sat down, with George sitting next to Harry and Fred next to Draco. The boys then started to talk about pranks, and, once the younger boys heard that the twins were Beaters, Quidditch. It soon became apparent that they all were fans of the same team, and all loved flying. What Harry couldn’t understand, though, was the fact that both Fred and George seemed to constantly be looking at him intently, and whenever they did, Draco would give them a heated glare.

 

Their moment of relative peace was soon interrupted by the door to their compartment opening, and the red headed boy, whom Harry had seen with the rest of the Weasley family, came in, saying:

 

“Can I sit here, everywhere else is fu-” He cut off when he saw who Harry was sitting with, and then started to shout.

 

“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!”

 

This was apparently directed at the twins, who just arched their eyebrows and said:

 

“Well Ronniekins”,

 

“since we prefer not to stand the whole ride”,

 

“and we found out Harry and Draco had a sense of humor”,

 

“which you don’t have, might we add”,

 

“and there was room in their compartment”,

 

“we decided to ask if we could sit with them.”

 

Apparently this didn’t have the desired effect to reason with the younger redhead, since his face seemed to turn as red as his hair, and he proceeded in his shouting:

 

“I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONE TO SIT WITH HARRY POTTER! I’LL BE HIS BEST FRIEND!”

 

“Oh? And who exactly gave you the right to decide who I sit it? Or better yet, who I’ll be friends with?” Harry asked the red headed and red faced boy with a raised eyebrow, while fiddling his wand casually.

 

For some reason this seemed to calm Ron, as he suddenly turned smug and said:

 

“Because the Boy-Who-Lived shouldn’t associate with snakes and the likes of those guys. You should be friends with someone like me. I’m Ron Weasley.” At the last part he pointed at the twins, who looked mildly surprised by his attitude towards them.

 

“Sorry, I prefer not to be friends fit arrogant, annoying gits. I happen to find Draco, Fred and George a lot more funny than you. So do us a favor and let us continue the conversation you interrupted”, Harry said, getting annoyed with the boy. Honestly, what kind of idiots just barges in and starts shouting about how someone should be their friend and then insults that person’s friends?

It seemed that Ron didn’t like his response, since he turned red yet again and started shouting in even louder voice:

 

“YOU’LL REGRET THIS! DUMBLEDORE SAID YOU’D BE MY FRIEND! SO YOU BETTER TAKE THAT BACK!”

 

The three other boys in the compartment looked shocked about his words, not having expected to hear that the so-called Leader of the light would say something like that. Harry, however, just raised his eyebrow yet again in a bored yet annoyed manner, and asked:

 

“And I’m supposed to care? Do you honestly expect me to suddenly start licking your boots just because that guy told you that I’d be your friend?”

 

His words caused Ron to look shocked while opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish, obviously not having expected such a response, while the other three bursted into laughing, with Draco almost falling of his seat from laughing too hard.

 

“Now, could you get the hell out of our compartment and save us from having to listen to your shouting?” Harry asked, looking at the boy who seemed to snap out of his goldfish-state and turn even angrier than before at seeing the other three laughing at him, moving his hand to reach for his wand - probably so he could try to hex them. Unfortunately for him, all of the four other boys saw what he was doing, and Draco, being his awesome self, pointed his own wand at him and mutter a spell, which then hit the red headed idiot in the chest and made hit get covered in snails. His face, which was a mixture of disgust and horror, was so hilarious that all of the four pranksters had trouble to keep themselves from falling on the floor for laughing so hard, while Ron ran out of their compartment, screaming his head off.

 

**“That...was….brilliant...Harry!”** Harry could hear his Dad’s voice say between his laughter, gasping for breath.

 

_“Oh, so you woke up?”_ was Harry’s short response, as he was too busy laughing his ass off himself. He could see James do a mental eye roll as he said in a ‘duh’ voice:

 

**“As if I could sleep when that brat was screaming his head off at you. Honestly, his voice is almost as loud as his mother’s. By the way, I officially declare Draco awesome enough to be your best friend. That hex was hilarious.”**

 

“ _Thanks, Dad._ ”

 

It took the four boys about fifteen minutes to calm down enough to not burst into laughter again, they sat down again - the twins had fallen to the floor during their laughing fit - and all heads turned to Harry.

 

“So…… Why did Dumbledore tell that git to befriend you, Harry? I mean, I get that he’d want to befriend the Boy-Who-Lived to get fame, but why’d the so-called Leader of Light actually TELL him to do that?” Draco asked, looking at his (best)friend quizzically. Said boy looked at his new friends for a moment, before he sighed and said:

 

“Well, from what I’ve heard from Daddy - my Daddy’s Sirius Black, if you didn’t already guess - that Dumbles wants to make me a perfect weapon for him since he believes that Voldy isn’t completely dead. (Which might be true, but that’s beside the point.) He actually went against my Dad’s and Auntie Lily’s wills and put me to live with her Muggle sister’s family, which totally hated me. Plus it was his fault that Daddy didn’t get a trial and was thrown straight to Azkaban. And according to Auntie Lily - her portrait is at the Potter Manor - he manipulated her and Dad to get married to supposedly to “protect me and Sirius” and was the one that suggested that they go hiding in Godric’s Hollow, even though the Manor is a lot safer. So it doesn’t really surprise me that he’d choose some people to be my “friends” so that they could spy on me or something.”

 

By the time he finished his explanation, Draco, Fred and George were looking at him with wide

eyes, their faces quite a bit paler than normally. The twins looked even more shocked than Draco, since they’d been told that Dumbledore was a good man since they were kids, while said young Malfoy looked more angry than shocked - after his brain had processed the information, that’s it.

 

“Wait. So you’re telling us that Dumbledore actually went against the Will of the Lord of one of the richest Most Ancient and Most Noble Houses, got another thrown to Azkaban and then had the nerve to dump said House’s only Heir to live with some Muggles that aren’t even related to you?” asked the blonde boy incredulously, like he couldn’t believe someone would actually do that. Especially when it was the House of Potter they were talking about, which just happened to be one of the most influential families of the Wizarding World, seeing that they came from the Peverell line.  And which, by the way, had a lot more power than the Ancient and Noble House of Dumbledore - whose only famous member was Albus Dumbledore, and now that Draco had heard about what he had done, his “greatness” was really questionable. Not that Draco had even thought the man as someone great and powerful. To him, that grandfatherly act of his just screamed suspicious. So while he was pretty shocked to hear something like that, he got over it a lot quicker than the twins.

 

Speaking of the twins, their brains were currently trying to wrap around the information that Dumbledore was a manipulative bastard, not the “great and brilliant man” who their parents had always said he was. Of course, neither Fred or George had ever actually blindly believed what was said about the old wizard, as no prankster worth of his title would just accept everything they were told, especially when the stories of the guy were almost TOO great and made him look too brilliant. Like he could do nothing wrong. While they had never actually SUSPECTED him of doing something so manipulative and horrible, they’d never actually trusted the guy. Not that they actually trusted many others - despite how carefree they acted - than those few chosen people, who included their older brothers Bill and Charlie and their best friend Lee. And now Harry and Draco, which they found strange, since they had known the boys for barely an hour. Apparently them being fellow pranksters and sharing their interest in Quidditch had a part in it. Well,that  and the fact that Harry was cute. Made trusting him so much easier. Besides, the unsaid rule of all pranksters was that no one fooled a fellow prankster about something when doing so would cause harm to them. Every prankster knew that. So they were fairly sure that Harry wasn’t lying.

 

“Yep. Apparently he doesn’t give a shit about those things. But I guess you can understand why I don’t exactly like that Old Goat”, Harry answered to Draco, while looking at the twins’ reaction. He knew that they had been raised to believe that Dumbledore was God’s gift to the world and bullshit like that, so he wasn’t absolutely sure they’d believe him just like that.

 

As the twins noticed Harry was looking at them, they smiled, and opened their mouths to say that they believed him. However, before they could mutter even a word, they were interrupted when the door opened and a chubby boy with dark brown hair and brown eyes stepped in the compartment.

 

“Sorry, but have you seen a toad? He keeps getting away from me”, the boy asked in a shy voice, looking at the four boys sitting on the benches.

 

“No, we haven’t.” Harry answered, before standing and reaching out his hand to the boy, “I’m Harry Potter-Black, by the way, and these are my friends Draco Malfoy and Fred and George Weasley. Nice to meet you.”At their names, said boys responded with a “Hi”.

 

The boy seemed surprised, but after a moment he shook his hand and said:

 

“I’m Neville Longbottom. N-nice to meet you too.”

 

Harry looked at the boy, and smiled. So this was the son of Frank and Alice Longbottom that his parents had talked about. Interesting.

It was at this time that Draco decided to interrupt and asked:

 

“Where did you last see that toad of yours? Maybe you should ask a Prefect to help you find it.”

 

“Nah. They’re probably”,

 

“too busy being pompous brats”,

 

“like Percy”,

 

“to help finding a toad”,

 

“so we should try to find it ourselves”, the twins said, grinning as they did. The boy, Neville, seemed rather surprised at the offer, and asked:

 

“Y-you’ll help me find Trevor?”

 

At this, all four boys grinned and said as one:

 

“Of course we will. We just said that, didn’t we? Now, let’s go toad hunting.”

 

And so the rest of the train ride was spent trying to find Neville’s toad, who they ended up finding from the toilet, and getting to know to each other as they did. After the four pranksters discovered that Neville was using his father’s old wand, Draco immediately launched into explanation why it wasn’t a good thing and why the chubby boy should have his own wand. In the end, by the time they arrived to the station and the three first years were led to the boats by Hagrid, they had convinced Neville to write a letter to his grandmother explaining the need of having his own wand that was not his dad’s, and asking to be taken to Ollivander's to buy one as soon as possible.

 

And during all this, James had fallen asleep again.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys arrive in Hogwarts, the Sorting doesn't go the way a certain Headmaster planned and Harry and Draco get a new friend. Oh, and Snape is a git.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi people, Childe here! And the new chapter of CTW. Sorry it took so long, I'm currently writing other HP stories (won't be posting any of them here for a while though), and that in addition to the move has kept me busy. 
> 
> Anyway, here's the new chapter. 
> 
> ~I do not own Harry Potter series. If I did, Ginny would have become a nice lunch for the Basilisk. The HP series belongs to Rowling.~

Lady Fate - aka Kyria - paced in her room, looking at the two of her “windows” at the wall behind her desk. The one in the right showed Harry, Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom were sitting in a boat with a bushy haired girl, clearly annoyed as said girl went on and on about something. The other one, however, showed a white haired- and bearded old man with absolutely no fashion sense talking to an old, worn looking hat, before casting some kind of spell on said hat and then walking out of the room. The latter one was the thing that had caused this oh-so-great become so irritated that she actually started pacing. This would not do. If things were left as they were, her plans of wonderful friendship between the three above mentioned boys would be ruined. She could not possibly let this slide. Definitely not.

 

And so, with this decision, she snapped her fingers and appeared in the room where the Sorting Hat was waiting for the Sorting, and walked straight to the hat, asking:

 

“What did Dumbledore say to you about Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy?”

 

“He said that Mr Malfoy was to go to Slytherin and I should consider putting Mr Potter in Slytherin, and then change my mind and put him in Gryffindor”, was the answer she got, which didn’t improve her mood one bit. Knowing that the hat was under some kind of spell, she simply snapped her fingers yet again to break it.

 

As the spell broke, the Hat seemed to finally actually realize just WHO he was talking to, and asked:

 

“Lady Fate, why are you here? Do you perhaps want something?”

 

“Of course. I want you to put Harry and Draco to the house they truly belong. It shouldn’t be hard to realize what it is once you see their minds”, Kyria responded in a I-don’t-take-no-for-an-answer tone, before adding, “Oh, and if you don’t do as I say, I’ll turn you pink and full of peacock feathers. However, if you’ll be a good little hat and place them in a nice house where they belong, perhaps I’ll let you stop singing that horrible song every year.”

 

The Hat nodded, knowing that she’d actually do that and that he DIDN’T want to turn pink, and no sooner than he had done that, the woman was gone, leaving behind her only thin air.

 

Kyria, on her part, appeared back in her room, and went to lay on her couch, watching the things from her precious windows. Now that that nuisance was taken care of, she could just sit back and watch as that Old Goat’s plans got thrown out of the window.

 

Oh, the sweet revenge.

 

-______-

 

Meanwhile Harry, Neville and Draco were trying to figure out how the hell you shut down a constantly-talking know-it-all girl, who acted way too bossily for their liking. Draco had suggested throwing her off their boat, but the other two boys had refused, thinking that it’d be a bit cruel to push a girl in the cold water. Now, however, they were having second thoughts about their decision as they could feel headaches making their ways to their heads.

 

“I told you that we should have pushed her out of the boat when we began our journey across the lake!” Draco whispered at his friends, getting really irritated by the constantly babbling girl. Honestly, just how much can she talk?!

 

“I know, I know, Draco. We really should have. But honestly, how could we have known that she talked so much?” Harry said, irritation clear in his voice. That girl’s attitude was seriously getting on his nerves.

 

“Or that she was a know-it-all and super bossy?” Neville asked, just as irritated as his friends. During the hours of the train ride, the boys had managed to convince him that he really wasn’t a loser or a squib or anything like that, and that he needed some confidence. And he had decided to start by not stuttering and being all shy around his friends, even though it’d take time before he would be able to act confident in front of other people.Luckily for him, Draco and Harry seemed to have more than their fair share of confidence and cockyness, as well as enough acting skills to fool anyone - expect those who knew them - like the prefect who had come to yell at them for hexing “Ronald” - apparently the prefect was a Weasley and Ronald was the youngest Weasley boy. Of course, his friends had told him all about how the git - Ronald - had came to their compartment had gotten angry when Harry refused to be his friend.

Anyway, the prefect had started to yell at them when they stepped out of the train, but Draco and Harry’s “double puppy eyes of doom” - as they now called them - and a story of how Ron had just suddenly gotten angry and tried to hit them, complete with a few sobs, had made him let them go and instead go find the git to demand why he had tried to hit a few of his fellow first years. Of course, they had kept the facade until the prefect was gone, before high-fiving each other and then continuing on their merry way to the boats, where they had been joined by a bushy haired girl with large front teeth, who had began talking about anything and everything before she had even sat down on the boat. Which made all of the boys wish that they knew a silencing spell.

 

Finally, after what felt likes hours for the boys but was actually about fifteen minutes, they could see Hogwarts Castle before them, and the sight of it shut even the bushy haired girl up. Something which caused the boys to sigh in relief. They were sure that if they had had to listen to the girl’s talking even a moment more, they’d have gone crazy. Or thrown her to the lake and left her there. Whichever happened first. Though Neville was pretty sure that Harry and Draco would have gone for the latter one. They’d have deemed it a revenge for making their heads ache.

With these thoughts the three young wizards followed Hagrid with the rest of the first years to the castle doors, where Hagrid knocked on the door and a stern looking witch opened the door.

 

**“Hey, that’s Minnie! Or Minerva McGonagall, as she introduces herself”** , James said, having woken up during the boat ride.

 

_“Minnie? The Transfiguration professor and the Gryffindor Head?”_ asked Harry in response.

 

**“Yeah. Though she’s probably under Dumbles’s influence too, so be careful around her.”**

 

_“Right.”_

 

Harry then realized that during their little conversation inside his head McGonagall had explained about the Houses - not that he didn’t already know about them - about the sorting, and the basic rules - which he had no intention to follow. Oh, and the ghosts made their appearance just as McGonagall left the room, and soon Harry’s headache got worse from people’s screams that rang in the room. Honestly, what was there to scream about in ghosts? They were perfectly normal in the Wizarding World. Though he had one living inside his head, so maybe he couldn’t talk. But it was still stupid.

The stern witch-professor then came back, and led them to the Great Hall, where all of the older students were already sitting and looking at them with interest. Harry saw the Twins amongst the other Gryffindors, and as soon as they noticed him, Draco and Neville they waved at the younger boys.

 

McGonagall then made them stop in front of the Hall, where she placed a stool with an old hat sitting atop of it before them, which then started to sing a horrible song with it’s not-so-good singing voice. After it had finally finished the song, McGonagall explained them how the Sorting worked - Harry tuned her out at this, since his Dad had already explained it to him - and then called the first name.

 

“Abbott, Hannah!”

 

A girl with blonde pigtails and a pink face came forward and sat on the stool, and the professor then set the hat on her head. Moments later the hat called:

 

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

 

At this, the Hufflepuff table cheered, and welcomed the girl to their house. McGonagall then called a person named Susan Bones forward, and she too was placed in Hufflepuff. This was followed by Terry Boot and Mandy Brocklehurst, who both went to Ravenclaw, as well as Lavender Brown, who became the first new Gryffindor yet. Said House erupted to cheers, loudest of whom being Fred and George, who were catcalling. This caused a grin make its way to Harry’s face, before he heard the stern witch call a person named Millicent Bulstrode, who then became a Slytherin. Justin Finch- Fletchley then became a Hufflepuff, and Seamus Finnigan became a Gryffindor - which caused said table to erupt to cheers again. It seemed that the Gryffindors were a lot louder with their cheers than any other house. Which was kinda expected, seeing what most of the Gryffindors were like.

 

The first real surprise during the Sorting was when Hermione Granger - the know-it-all bushy haired girl - was placed in Gryffindor, and Harry couldn’t help but groan. Of course she just had to go to Gryffindor. Just his luck. However, he soon forgot his dismay as Neville was called forward, and to the chubby boy’s surprise was sorted to Gryffindor, too. He then ran to the Gryffindor table - after putting the hat on a stool, and Harry saw him sit next to the twins. During this a guy named Morag MacDougal had been sorted - Harry didn’t catch which house - and then Draco was called forward.

 

However, this was when the second surprise of the Sorting happened, as after just a few seconds the Sorting Hat called:

 

“GRYFFINDOR!”

 

This caused the whole hall to fall into a silence for a few moments, before Fred and George started cheering and clapping, soon followed by the rest of their house. Draco, for his part, looked shocked for a moment, before a happy grin took its place on his face and he practically skipped to sit with Neville and the Twins. Harry couldn’t help but grin at his friend as Draco went past the first years still waiting to be sorted, which was responded with a smile.

 

After that, there were a few other people - who Harry didn’t pay much attention to - and then McGonagall called:

 

“Potter, Harry!”

 

No sooner had she said his name, when whispers already broke in the hall and he could hear things like “Potter? Did she say Potter?”, “As in, The Harry Potter?”, “For real?” and so on so forth. He found it really annoying, but despite that he walked confidently to the stool, sat down, and placed the Sorting Hat on his head.

 

“Well, Mr. Potter, it seems that you’re here at last. Ready to cause mischief and gray hairs to the professors, I see”, he could hear the Hat say in his head, in no different way than his Dad usually spoke to him.

 

_“Yup! Can’t let their lives be too boring without my parents here”_ , Harry responded in brightly to it, while a grin took place in his face.

 

The hat then just chuckled, and said:

 

“Looks like the next seven years will turn out to be very interesting. Try not to destroy the school, will you. I’ve grown rather attached to it. Now, there’s no doubt where you belong, so go sit with others of the House of…”

 

“GRYFFINDOR!” echoed in the Great Hall, as everyone had waited in silence. However, at those words, the whole hall - minus the Slytherin table - erupted to cheers, with the Gryffindors being the loudest. Harry then almost ran towards his group of friends, where Fred and George were shouting “We got Harry! We got Harry!” over and over again, with Nev and Draco looking at him with grins.

As he finally got there, the twins each gave him a excited hug, before giving way to Draco, who then proceeded to hug the live out of him by giving him a bone-crushing hug. After he had gotten some air back to his lungs, he sat down between Draco and George - he could easily tell the twins apart - and felt Neville give him a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. He then watched as the last of the first years were sorted, with Dean Thomas going to Gryffindor and Lisa Turpin going to Ravenclaw. Then, to the group’s much hargin, Ron got sorted to Gryffindor too, which caused Draco, Harry and Neville to scowl. They’d actually have to share a room with that idiotic git. It’d be a miracle if they could go even one night without hexing each other. Maybe they should get someone to put charms around their beds and trunks just in case. You never knew what that guy would try to do.

 

Their attention was soon brought from their plans to the Head Table, as Dumbledore started giving his welcoming speech with unnaturally huge smile on his face, as if nothing could please him more than to see them all there.

 

**“He probably think that he can easily manipulate any of the students to suit his plans”** , Harry heard his father comment in an angry voice, and mentally agreed with him. However, he didn’t have time to answer, as Dumbles then deemed it fit to to end his speech with some random words, and the food appeared on the table. Of course, Harry immediately snatched a bit of beef and potatoes for himself, as he was pretty sure that Dumbles wouldn’t have put anything weird in the food that everyone ate, as it would have been suspicious for everyone to suddenly start worshipping him.

 

“Is he mad?” Draco asked, nodding his head towards the Old Goat.

 

“Mad? He’s brilliant!” Percy Weasley, the Prefect from earlier said, looking at them. “He’s the greatest wizard of all time! Though yes, he is a bit mad.”

 

“More like a manipulative bastard”, Harry mumbled to Draco, Neville and the Twins, who all nodded in agreement.

 

“Oh, and Fred, George, I expect you to not ruin my chances of becoming the next Head Boy by doing something like blowing up a toilet or anything else as ridiculous”, Percy said to the Twins, who just grinned in a mischievous way and said:

 

“Oh, but Percy”,

 

“how could you even think”,

 

“that we would do something like that?”

 

Instead of answering, Percy just gave them a disapproving look, which they just shrugged off and proceeded to plan their first prank with Draco and Harry, with Neville butting in now and then.

 

The rest of the Sorting then proceeded with Dumbledore giving yet another speech, this time reminding that Forbidden Forest was off-limits to all students - for some reason, he seemed to look at the twins as he said this -, things about Quidditch teams and some boring things about not using magic on the corridors - honestly, did they seriously think that they wouldn’t use magic outside of classes? Then came the surprising part.

 

“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death”, the old Headmaster said, looking at the students. Now this caught Harry’s - and his friends’ - attention. If going there would lead to death, why the hell did Dumbles tell the students that it was dangerous? Everyone were bound to be curious.

**“Maybe that’s his plan. He wants the students, and more specifically you, to be curious about the corridor and go take a look”** , James commented, looking at the Old Goat warily.

 

_“I guess. But you have to wonder what’s in there… Can’t we take a look in there? Just a little peek? Pretty please?”_ Harry wondered, before giving his Dad mental puppy eyes of doom. James just sighed in response and said:

 

**“Fine, we can take a peek inside with your friends. But after that we’ll leave his tries to make you take a part in his plans alone, okay?”**

 

_“Yes Dad.”_

 

Their mental conversation was then once again interrupted, this time by Dumbledore making everyone sing the school song - with Harry joining the twins on the funeral march and them being the last ones to finish singing - and sending everyone to bed.

 

Harry, Draco and Neville then followed the rest of the first years - with Fred and George tagging along - towards the Gryffindor dorms, until their journey was interrupted by Peeves, who started throwing sticks at them.

 

When Percy showed that he had absolutely no control of the poltergeist, the Twins shouted:

 

“Hey Peeves! Mind letting us go through? A prankster needs his beauty sleep to be able to come up with genius ideas!”

 

Surprisingly to everyone but the Twins, Harry and Draco, Peeves stuck out his tongue at Percy and threw one more stick at him, before disappearing with a small pop and a foul smell. The group then made its way to their dorm, and after a few more instructions, climbed up the staircases to their respective rooms - that, much to the three first year boy’s hargin, they had to share with Ron Weasley and two others, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. While the two latter ones didn’t seem too bad, the git certainly did, as he sent them glares until they all went to bed and, eventually, fell asleep.

 

-__________-

 

Next morning found Harry, Draco, Nev, Fred and George walking towards the Great Hall for breakfast, while ignoring the whispers of “Hey, did you see?”, “Where?”, “Next to the red headed twins” and things like that. Honestly, the young Potter Heir was getting annoyed with all the whispering, but since their prank wasn’t ready to be put into action yet, he just had to endure it. It didn’t help that the git had woken them up by screeching at Draco about something or the other, which wasn’t even the blonde’s fault. So it was safe to say that they all were more than a bit grumpy.

 

To make their moods even worse, when they got their timetables they noticed that they had potions as their first class of the year, and since they had arrived at breakfast late, they were in a hurry to get their books from their dorm room. So, after they had parted with the twins, they took to running towards the Gryffindor dorm, with Draco leading the way. However, after they had managed to get their books, they realized that they had a bit of a problem - they had no idea just WHERE in the dungeons the potions classroom was. So they decided to run to the lower floors of the castle, and try to find someone who knew.

 

Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how you look at it - in their haste they were unable to look where they were going, and so, while they were turning yet another corner, Draco - who was running before Harry and Nev - found himself colliding with someone and landing on said person. On a rather muscular chest, to be exact.

 

“Now now, I know that I’m hot, but there’s no need to jump on me like that”, a boy’s voice said from beneath him, and caused the young Malfoy Heir to turn pinkish from the face and quickly scramble off of him.

 

“W-what are you talking about!? I didn’t jump on you! It was an accident!” He stuttered, trying to sound like he wasn’t blushing and hadn’t just landed on top of a handsome boy. For the boy was indeed quite handsome, with his dark-brown hair and green eyes. Not to mention a suitably muscular body. Draco couldn’t help but take a good look at the boy with his gaze, before he saw the boy’s grin, which caused him to blush even more. Which in turn caused his friends to snicker behind him.

 

“Sure, cutie, whatever you say. Name’s Cedric Diggory, by the way”, the boy - now introduced as Cedric - said, flashing yet another grin at them, though it seemed to be more focused on Draco than the two other boys. Which, of course, caused Harry and Nev to smirk and Draco to blush before turning his gaze away.

 

“Draco Malfoy. And don’t call me cutie”, Draco said, while trying to gather himself up enough to stop blushing. Which, from how heated his cheeks felt, appeared to fail miserably.

 

“And we’re Harry Potter-Black and Neville Longbottom. That’s our best friend you’re flirting with”, Harry introduced himself and Nev casually, before turning to his blonde best friend, “Hey Draco, if you’re done checking Diggory out, I think we’re supposed to go find that bloody potions classroom.”

 

This caused Draco to glare at him with the same pinkish tint in his cheeks, and exclaim:

 

“I was NOT checking him out!”

 

This time it was Neville who spoke up:

 

“Whatever you say. Now, Mr Diggory, would you mind directing us to the potions classroom?”

 

“Sure. I’m always ready help cuties and their friends. Now, follow me”, Cedric said, and with a wink to Draco, started leading them towards the dungeons. Of course, Draco protested to being called a cutie as he followed after the three, while trying desperately to get the small blush off his face.

 

“Say, what year you’re on? I don’t think I’ve seen you three before. I’m sure I’d have remembered if I had seen such a cute boy as your friend before,” Cedric asked the two non-blushing Gryffindors, which caused them to grin at Draco before Harry answered:

 

“First year, all in Gryffindor.”

 

“You’re a Hufflepuff, right? What year?” Neville asked him, watching as the older boy grinned at them.

 

“I’m a fourth year. So feel free to ask me if you have anything you want to know. I don’t mind answering personal questions either… especially to Drakey”, the Hufflepuff boy answered, and winked at Draco at the last part. Which didn’t help the boy in getting the blush to go away.

 

“DON’T CALL ME DRAKEY!” the blonde boy exclaimed, before turning to look at anywhere but the older boy. However, before said boy could respond to his shout, they were interrupted by Harry coughing and saying:

 

“Not that I want to interrupt your flirting, but we’ll be late. So would you two mind if we, you know, hurried up?”

 

In the end they, by some miracle, ended up actually getting to class on time, and, after bidding Cedric goodbye and promising to meet up with him later, they found themselves seats from the back of the Potions classroom. As they did so, they were discussing whether or not Snape would be as prejudiced as Fred and George had told them. Harry was betting that he would be, while Draco was trying to say something good about his godfather - and coming up with nothing - while Neville was saying that there was no point in guessing when they would see it for themselves in a matter of minutes.

 

True to Nev’s words, the greasy haired man soon stormed to the classroom, practically glaring at every single Gryffindor student in the room. He then started taking the roll call, without forgetting to sneer at Draco and Neville’s names, before stopping at Harry’s name:

 

“Ah, yes. Harry Potter, our new celebrity.”

 

He then finished the roll call and proceeded to give his starting speech, which Harry didn’t bother to listen since his Dad deemed this the right moment to comment:

 

**“I just knew that he’d take his grudge at me and Siri out on you. Stupid, hypocritical git.”**

 

_“You forgot greasy”_ , Harry commented in turn, pretending that he was actually listening to what the so-called professor was saying.

 

**“Oh, how silly of me. How could I forget greasy? Thanks for reminding me Prongslet”** , James said dramatically, before bursting to laughter, while Harry had a hard time trying to stop himself from following his example. As much as he tried to, he couldn’t stop a smirk from finding its way on his face.

 

“What are you grinning about?” Draco whispered to him, while sneaking a glance at Snape to make sure he hadn’t noticed. To this the raven haired boy just shrugged as an answer and whispered back:

 

“That bushy haired know-it-all seems to be way too eager to prove that she isn’t a dunderhead.”

 

As he said this, he jerked his head towards said girl and both of his friends glanced her way, before equally smirking. It looked pretty amusing. However, the boys were soon forced to turn their attention back to Snape, as the man suddenly said:

 

“Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

 

Said boy turned his gaze to the greasy haired man and raised his eyebrow in a ‘are you seriously asking that from me?’ way and answered:

 

“A sleeping potion called the Draught of Living Death.”

 

Snape seemed very irritated by the fact that Harry got it right, but was forced to nod in confirmation.

 

“And where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?” He then asked, clearly in an attempt to make the young Potter look stupid.

 

**“That greasy git! That’s a OWL level question!”** James exclaimed, giving death glares at the greasy haired git from inside Harry’s head.

 

_“You just realized that, Dad? Anyway, what’s the answer?”_ said boy asked, while looking like he was thinking to other students, who had their gazes on him.

 

**“Stomach of a goat”** , was the answer the older Potter gave, while pointedly ignoring his son’s other question. Said boy just mentally nodded, before focusing his attention to the so-called Professor and answering:

 

“You can find a bezoar from the stomach of a goat.”

 

If possible, Snape seemed even more annoyed now, and was down right glaring at the raven

haired boy who, in his opinion, looked way too much like James Potter. He only had Lily’s eyes. His oh-so-beautiful Lily’s. The boy looked nothing like her in any other part. He was just as much of a dick as his father. Just as spoiled, too. Never mind that the greasy haired man oh-so conveniently overlooked the fact that this was the first time he met the boy and so couldn’t actually know what he was like.

 

“Potter, what is the difference between monkshood and Wolfsbane?” He then abruptly asked, sneering at the boy. However, instead of the “I don’t know” or something akin to that that he was expecting, the boy just raised his eyebrow with a smirk on his face and asked:

 

“Why’re you asking these questions from me, Professor? I’m pretty sure that a professor should know the difference between those two. You know, since you’re teaching us potions and all.”

 

His answer, as well as the cheeky tone it was said with, caused all of the Gryffindors in the room - minus one Hermione Granger, who looked quite scandalized - to burst into laughter, and the greasy haired professor to glare at the boy.

 

“A point from Gryffindor for your cheek, Potter”, Snape snapped at him, conveniently forgetting to give them the right answer to the earlier question. Not that anyone - expect Granger - cared anyway.

 

The potions lesson then continued by Snape putting them in pairs and making them mix some potion for curing boils - Harry was paired with Draco. The so-called Professor then walked around the classroom, criticizing all Gryffindors and a few Slytherins and complimenting the rest of the people from the House of Snakes.

 

“That’s just plain favoritism”, Draco whispered to Harry, as they stewed their horned slugs.

 

“Oh, so you admit that he’s a git?” the raven haired boy whispered back with a grin, before he glanced at Neville working in the table next to them with Seamus Finnigan and whispered a hurried “Don’t!” as the boy was just about to add his porcupine quills in the potion while it was still on the fire. His friend then turned to him with an eyebrow raised in question, and Harry whispered:

 

“Take the potion off the fire before you add them. Otherwise the cauldron will melt.”

 

Neville paled at this, and hurriedly took his cauldron off the fire before adding the porcupine quills. He then whispered a quiet “Thanks” to Harry, before glancing at Snape, who was glaring at the raven haired boy murderously. Apparently he had been hoping to be able to shout at Neville for messing up and then blame it all on Harry or something like that. At least that’s what his expression told them.

 

**“Wouldn’t put it past him”** , Harry heard his Dad comment inside his head, and mentally nodded.

 

_“This calls for some pranking”_ , he commented with a mental smirk, making a mental note to make Snape their first pranking victim. Oh, that would be fun. Very fun indeed.

 

**“Do me proud, Prongslet”** , James said, and then fell quiet, as the younger of the two was pulled out of their mental conversation by Draco telling him to pay attention to their potion.

 

-_______-

 

When the lesson ended an explosion-free hour later the trio could be seen walking out of the classroom amongst other first year Gryffindors, only for them to be greeted with the sight of Cedric, Fred and George leaning to the wall, clearly waiting for them.

 

“Hiya!” the Twins said, raising their right hands in a greeting.

 

“Hey, Drakey”, could be heard from the only Hufflepuff of the older boys, which made the boy in question glare at him.

 

“Don’t call me that! What are you even doing here?” Draco exclaimed, which made Cedric place his hand on his heart dramatically and say in mock hurt:

 

“How cold. I simply wanted to escort you to your next class, since you don’t know your way around the castle yet. I’m hurt.”

 

The blonde boy just rolled his eyes at the older boys dramatics, before turning his attention to the twins, Harry and Neville, who had all started talking about what a git Snape was.

 

“You do know that we’re standing outside of his classroom, right?”

 

At his question all four looked at him, blinked, and asked as one:

 

“Yeah. What about it?”

 

Draco rolled his eyes at their slowness, and answered:

 

“He’ll hear you, dummies. And then he’ll keep even more of an eye on you.”

 

This was responded with “Oh” from them, before Cedric stepped in and reminded them that they were supposed to get to class. So, after a quick glance at their timetables and confirming that the three first years had Transfiguration while Cedric and the Twins had Charms, they made their way towards the Transfigurations classroom. Once there they bid goodbye to each other, with Fred, George and Cedric promising to help them to their classes after lunch too and then hurrying towards the Charms classroom, and the three young first years stepped through the door, ready to face their Head of the House in their first Transfiguration lesson and possibly cause some mayhem.

  
  


And during all this, one Lady Fate could be seen chuckling evilly in her room.

 

 


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our dear first years pay a friendly visit to Hagrid - who really needs to learn how to not act suspicious - and have their first flying lesson. Shame Ron just has to be an idiotic git as usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, sorry for the long wait! School started exactly a month ago, and I swear they are trying to kill us with the workload they give us. And I'll have two exam weeks in a row the week after next, so I have my hands full right now. So if I don't answer any of your comments, I have probably experienced death-by-failing-chemistry. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter! 
> 
> ~Nope, still not Rowling, so I don't own Harry Potter series. I claim full ownership of Kyria though.~

As Harry, Draco and Neville sat on their places in the Transfiguration classroom, listening to Professor McGonagall who was giving them all a speech of “not messing around in this class”, they felt extremely bored. Sure, trying to change things to something else must be interesting, but the professors speech was way-too-boring, especially when all three of the boys knew that they’d end up going against what she was lecturing them about. Besides, Harry knew that Minnie wouldn’t really kick them out, since all of the Marauders had passed Transfiguration with excellent grades - well, except Wormtail, but he was an idiotic, cowardly traitor. So he didn’t count.

 

“ **Of course he doesn’t. That damned traitor isn’t worth the mighty title of a Marauder”** , James growled, turning angry at the very mention of his former friend-turned-Death Eater.

 

“ _True. Now, do you have any idea what Minnie just said? I kind of tuned her out”_ , Harry asked, seeing said witch look at them, apparently having asked something from the class. However, the response he got was only a shrug from the his dad, indicating that the older man hadn’t heard her question either. Oh well.

 

“Hey, Draco!” Harry whispered to his best friend, “what did she just say?”

 

The blonde glanced at him, and then whispered back:

 

“She asked if anyone here knows what an Animagus is. I don’t know what they are.”

 

Both Harry and James perked up at the question about Animagi, and seeing that the stern witch was still waiting for an answer, Harry raised his hand lazily.

 

“Yes, Mr Potter?”

 

Harry noticed the know-it-all girl - Hermione Granger, he thought her name was - look at him with a smug look, as if she expected him to not get the question right. However, he ignored it as he said:

 

“An Animagus is a witch or wizard who can turn into an animal at will.”

 

If McGonagall was surprised that he knew the answer, she did not show it, and instead awarded him five points for his answer. Granger, on her part, was glaring at him, apparently angry that someone else other than her knew something, to which Harry responded with a smirk to her. For some reason his smirk seemed to make her even angrier, but the raven haired boy took no notice of this as he proceeded to act like he was actually listening to what their Head of the House said.

 

This proved to be quite easy since said witch was currently busy showing them how to transform a match into a needle, and then made them all try to do it themselves for the remaining time of the lesson. It didn’t take that long for Harry and Draco to be able to make some changes to their matches, and eventually they successfully turned them to needles - James may or may not have given his son a few hints along the way. Coincidentally they did this just a while before Granger did, which got them more piercing glares from said girl. However, they pointedly ignored this as they each earned a point for being the first ones to do that and then proceeded to help Neville with his match, since he had made almost no change to it at all. They blamed this on the fact that he still had his Dad’s old wand which did obviously not suit him, as he would be going to get his own wand that evening.

 

In the end, by the time the class ended Neville had managed to turn his match silvery and the three boys had managed to get one Ronald Weasley to glare at them. Apparently the git hadn’t liked to see them give advice to two other Gryffindor first year boys, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas and ignore him completely. Of course that was their purpose from the beginning, and so our three wizards-to-be just exchanged grins and walked out of the classroom.

 

“ _It’s so easy to annoy him”_ , Harry commented in his mind, as he spotted the twins and Cedric standing a little ways from them, “ _he was so red I almost thought he was going to explode.”_

 

This earned him a laugh from James, as the older man shook his head and said:

 

“ **Harry, gits don’t explode. If they did, Snivellus would have blown up to little pieces looong time ago.”**

 

“ _Awww, and here I was thinking it’d be fun to see them explode!”_ Harry mock-pouted in his mind, before proceeding to wave at their three older friends and drag his best friends towards them.

 

“Hey Harry, we saw Ickle Ronniekins storming out of the classroom looking like a tomato. Care to share what caused this amusement?” Fred asked, as the three first years reached them. Said boys just grinned in response, before Draco said:

 

“Well, we might or might not have ignored him and helped two other Gryffindor boys instead…”

 

“And then we just might have smirked at him annoyingly”, Harry added, putting said smirk on his face as a demonstration. This caused the three older boys to laugh, and they made their way towards the Great Hall for lunch, laughing together all the way.

 

All of them then sat together in the Gryffindor table - Cedric decided that sitting next to Draco was a lot more interesting than sitting in the Hufflepuff table - and started to eat, chatting about anything and everything as they did. Occasionally Cedric threw a flirty comment at Draco’s way, and every time the young Malfoy Heir turned slightly pink from the cheeks and glared at him. As he got used to it, however, he started throwing a witty comment back, making all others of their little group laugh at them. In their opinion it was terribly amusing to watch Draco and Cedric bickering/flirting with each other, and the twins were already starting a betting pool how long it’d take for them to get together. They were sure those two would be together by Christmas.

Harry, for his part, said they’d get together by Easter. After Christmas, at least. And since Harry was best friends with Draco and so knew him the best out of the people in their group, Neville agreed with him.

 

Of course, Cedric and Draco were blissfully oblivious to their little bet.

  


-_______-

  


It was during this time that Harry remembered the invitation for tea that Hagrid had sent him during breakfast and which he had accepted out of curiosity, and so he asked his friends to come with him. They all answered positively - Hagrid was pretty nice, after all - and so they all made their way towards Hagrid’s hut after their classes were over, chatting happily as they did.

 

After they arrived to the hut and knocked on the door, the half-giant living inside opened the door.

 

“Harry! So yeh brough’ yer friends with yeh! C’mon in!” Hagrid exclaimed as he gestured them to step in.

 

“Don’t have enouh’ chairs, so some of yeh gotta stand. Sorry”, he then added while setting some teacups and cookies on the table. This made them all look at said table, and indeed, there were just four chairs around it.

 

At this, Cedric and the twins grinned wickedly, and said:

 

“Oh, don’t worry,”

 

“we have a perfect way,”

 

“for all of us to be able to sit down.”

 

With that Cedric sat on one of the chairs and placed Draco to sit on his lap, to which the blonde boy protested with “Hey! Let me go!”. Of course, the third year boy completely ignored his protests, and instead put his arms around the boy as he watched with amusement as the twins fought over on whose lap Harry was going to sit.

The twins’ little fight eventually ended with George snatching the little raven haired boy and pulling him onto his lap, while sticking his tongue out to Fred.

 

Unlike a certain blondie Harry didn’t protest to this new development, and instead just happily leaned his head to the taller boy’s shoulder while watching Draco give up his attempts to get out of Cedric’s lap in favor of taking the tea Hagrid was offering him.

 

To Hagrid’s credit, he didn’t seem at all bothered by their sitting arrangements, and instead just set more cookies on the table while glancing at Draco and Cedric with a knowing glint in his eyes. Oh yes, the half-giant could see that they most likely would end up together, no matter how inexperienced he was when it came to love. That’s why, when Fred whispered to him about their little betting pool, he put a galleon for them getting together soon after New Year. Of course, the subjects of their little bet didn’t notice anything.

 

“ **Don’t eat those cookies”** , James warned as he looked at said things with distaste, “ **they’ll break your teeth. Hagrid can’t bake.”**

 

“ _And you couldn’t say that BEFORE I tried to eat one, could you?”_ was the response he got, as the younger of the two Potters mentally glared at him while trying to check whether or not he had broken a tooth with his cookie. This made his dad laugh sheepishly.

 

“ **Ooops. Sorry, Prongslet.”**

 

Harry just huffed mentally at him and then proceeded to answer Hagrid’s question of how their first day had gone, with the other boys putting in now and then.

 

“Honestly, Snape obviously hates us-”

 

“-he singled Harry out and was obviously angry that Harry could answer his questions-” interrupted Neville.

 

“Those questions weren’t even things that are taught in first year”, added Draco.

 

“Rubbish!” Hagrid protested, “Why should he hate yeh?”

 

“Because he is a greasy git”, the group said as one.

 

“I swear, if looks could kill, I would be buried seven feet under right now”, Harry continued.

 

“All of the three of us would be.”

 

This made Cedric and George hug Draco and Harry tighter respectively, and, after all of the third years glanced at each other,  they commented:

 

“Well, it’s a good thing that looks can’t kill. We’d hate to have to kill Snape for glaring you to death.”

 

Before the younger boys could comment to that, Hagrid decided to not-so-subtly change the subject, and so asked the Twins:

 

“So, how’s yer brother Charlie? I liked him a lot - great with animals.”

 

“Oh, he’s fine”,

 

“more than fine, actually”,

 

“since he’s working with dragons”,

 

“away from mom’s shouting and whining”,

 

“in some Dragon Reserve in Romania”, they answered, and then proceeded to tell him everything they knew about Charlie’s work. Harry and Neville couldn’t help but listen their conversation, since hey, it was about dragons, and it sounded interesting.

 

While the four were engrossed in their conversation with Hagrid, Draco was looking around the hut with his gaze while Cedric hugged him, having long since given up in trying to get the older boy to let him go. And he was starting to think that sitting in his lap was quite nice, though he’d never ever say it out loud. Ever.

 

Anyway, he soon spotted a newspaper laying on the table - how they hadn’t noticed it before was beyond him - and its headline caught his interest.

 

“What’s this?” He wondered out loud, as he read the front page. This, in turn, caused his friends to turn their attention to him, and so he laid the paper back on the table for everyone to see.

 

“This says that Gringotts was broken into on 31st July.”

  


“Huh?” Harry let out, “that’s the day we went there.”

 

“Really?” Neville asked, raising an eyebrow, “Did you see anything?”

 

“Nope”, was the answer he gave, “Did you, Hagrid?”

 

For some reason, Hagrid refused to look at them in the eye and instead of answering just offered Harry another cookie. The boys, however, weren’t so easily distracted.

 

“This says that the vault in question had been emptied earlier that day. There can’t be many vaults that were emptied before the break-in”, Cedric commented.

 

“Hagrid emptied one vault. The only thing in there was some grubby little package. Maybe it was that one?” the young Potter Heir wondered.

 

“Look a’ the time! Yeh lot should go back ter castle. It’s almos’ dinner time”, Hagrid exclaimed, and then ushered them not-so-unsuspiciously out of his hut, making it clear that he was avoiding the topic.

 

“...Well, that was interesting”, Fred commented, once they were heading back to the castle after being ushered out.

 

“Does anyone else think it’s suspicious that Hagrid picked up something for old Dumbles when he was escorting Harry to get his school things?” Draco asked, while glaring at Cedric to stop the boy from flirting with him.

 

“ **Well, duh. Everything Dumbles does is suspicious”** , James said, not that anyone but Harry could hear it.

 

“Yep. I mean, if it’s supposed to be some ultra-secret, you shouldn’t pick it up with an 11 year old kid seeing it”, Harry answered, while mentally telling his dad to shut up.

 

“You think they hid whatever-that-thing-is in Hogwarts?” Cedric asked.

 

For this everyone else shot him looks that practically screamed “No shit Mr Obvious”, and the only Hufflepuff of the group exclaimed:

 

“What? I just asked!”

 

“That Old Goat of a Headmaster sure is crazy enough to hide a secret and most likely dangerous magical artefact in a school full of curious children”, Neville commented.

 

Everyone nodded at his words, and then decided as one that the topic was giving them headaches and thus started talking about pranks they should do during the year as they walked to the Great Hall for dinner.

  


-_______-

  


During the following week Harry, Draco and Neville got used to living in Hogwarts and eventually learned their way around the castle - though Cedric and the Twins still insisted

escorting them around “for protection from nasty gits”, as they themselves put it. None of their housemates cared about Cedric sitting in the Gryffindor table during meal times, and if certain Ronald Weasley happened to get his nose turned to a one resembling a clowns after shouting at them for “stealing his place as the best friend of the Boy-Who-Lived”, no-one complained.

 

Of course, the students and teachers DID care about getting their hairs turned to different neon colors during one dinner, but even that ended up with everyone laughing at each other. Though the fact that one Severus Snape got his hair turned to rainbow-colored - with miniature pink unicorns jumping around in it - may or may not have had a part in that.

 

Next Monday, however, brought them long-awaited news; the first years’ flying lessons would be starting next Thursday with Slytherins. This made Harry and Draco cheer loudly together with the Twins and Cedric - once they told him during lunch - and Neville to turn pale.

 

“What’s wrong, Nev?” Harry asked the chubby boy when he noticed how pale the other was.

 

“I can’t fly on a broom. What if I fall down?” Neville wailed, and looked like he was near tears.

 

“Don’t worry, if you fall, we’ll catch you. Besides, you can’t learn without trying”, Draco said comfortingly, and smiled at their shyer friend.

 

“Not to mention that there’s bound to be other people falling from their brooms-”, Fred said.

 

“-since first years have to use school brooms”, finished George.

 

Both Harry and Draco groaned dramatically at this, and said:

 

“Don’t remind us. We can’t use our own brooms during the lessons, since then Madam Hooch would see them. And take them away.”

 

“Wait, what? You managed to sneak your own brooms to school?” Cedric whispered, with an excited gleam in his eyes. The two first year Quidditch fanatics just grinned wickedly in response, and said:

 

“Of course we did”,

 

“did you seriously think”,

 

“we would fly on school brooms any more than we absolutely had to?”

 

This made the rest of the group to burst laughing at them, which in turn earned them strange looks from other people sitting in the Hall - well, expect Gryffindors, who had already gotten used to it. They promptly ignored those looks, since they were nothing new, and after calming down  started talking excitedly about different brooms.

  


-______-

  


On Thursday morning they all sat together in Gryffindor table eating breakfast, and Draco and Harry couldn’t help snorting at Ron’s tale about almost hitting a hang glider when he was flying on Charlie’s old broom.

 

“I bet the whole story is bullshit”, Draco said to his best friends in a not-so-quiet voice.

 

“That idiot probably doesn’t even know what a hang glider is”, Harry said while rolling his eyes, letting them all know that he was pretty annoyed with the git.

 

“Charlie would be sooo angry if he heard that Ron has flown his broom without his permission. Especially if it was his old one”, Fred commented with a wicked grin on his face that promised trouble, “He loves that broom.”

 

“We should tell him”, George added with an identical grin, “shouldn’t we, Gred?”

 

“Absolutely. That’d be most amusing”, his twin said, before they both burst to laughing after imagining what’d happen to Ron after their dragon-loving brother heard about their younger brother’s so-called great adventure on his dear broom. Which they were sure was a lot funnier to be around than the git they were forced to call a brother. How the hell they could be related to someone like him was beyond them.

 

Before anyone could comment to their mischievous plan to get Ron in trouble, they were interrupted by the owls flying to the Hall to bring the students their letters. One of the owls - a barn owl - dropped a small package to Neville’s plate, which they confirmed to be from his grandmother. After opening it they found it to be a Remembrall.

 

“Gran knows how much I forget things, so she sent me this. It turns red if you’ve forgotten something-” Neville exclaimed, only to be cut off when the ball turned red. The group watched the now-crimson-colored ball in interest, before Cedric commented:

 

“Looks like you’ve forgotten something.”

 

“No shit, Sherlock!” Draco snapped at him, though you could hear from his tone that he was pretty amused.

 

“Do you have any idea what you could have forgotten, Nev?” Harry asked, only to receive a shake of the head from the boy.

 

“Anyway, we should get going or we’ll be late”, Neville said nervously and stood up, waiting for his friends to do the same.

 

“Yeah. Let’s go”, Harry and Draco agreed as one while following his example, before they all said their goodbyes to the Twins and Cedric with the promise to tell everything about their first flying lesson to them later. They then walked together out of the Great Hall and towards the lawn where the lesson would be held, while Draco and Harry chatted excitedly about something related to flying.

 

When they arrived there the Slytherins were already there, next to the twenty broomsticks laying on the ground. It was a perfect flying weather, with a clear sky and a small breeze.

 

“ **A-ah, I wish I could fly too!”** James complained to Harry, though the younger of the two decided to completely ignore his Dad in favor of watching their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrive to the lawn. She had a short gray hair and eyes that resembles those of an eagle.

 

“ **Ooops. Looks like she still has those eyes”** , James laughed sheepishly while looking at his old flying professor.

 

“ _You made them like that?”_

 

“ **Yeah. As a prank. After she whined to me about my flying style. There was really nothing wrong with it, so I got annoyed”** , the older of the two explained, while shrugging his shoulders.

 

At this the young raven haired wizard just shook his head mentally at his Dad and then turned his attention back to his teacher.

 

“Well, what are you waiting for”, she shouted, “everyone choose a broomstick and stand by it. Hurry up!”

 

Harry and Draco glanced with dismay to their brooms, which both looked ancient and were in pretty bad condition. Definitely not in a condition where they should be allowed to be used. They didn’t even look safe to ride.

 

“...I don’t think these are safe. Do we seriously have to ride these?” they could hear a black haired Slytherin boy mutter quietly to himself next to them.

 

“Hey, it’s fine, they shouldn’t get out of control. They just start to vibrate if you fly too high. As long as you stay close to ground, you’ll be fine”, Draco whispered to him.

 

“You sure?” the boy whispered back.

 

“Yeah. And if you fall, we’ll catch you”, Harry whispered to him, before hurriedly turning his gaze back to Hooch as she looked at them sternly for speaking during class and then said:

 

“Stick out your right hand over your broom and say ‘Up’!”

 

Everyone did as instructed, and Harry’s broom shot right up to his hand. When he glanced at the other students, he noticed that both Draco and the boy from earlier had gotten their brooms at the first try, and Ron - much to the young Potter’s amusement - got his broom to hit his face. Granger’s broom was simply rolling in the ground. Neville’s broom, however, hadn’t moved at all.

 

“Nev, you have to say it with more strongly. Don’t let your voice sound afraid, or the broom won’t do as you say. It can tell if you’re afraid, you know”, Draco instructed their friend, who nodded and tried again, this time without the previous quiver in his voice. And what do you know, the broom actually shot to his hand this time, which made him exclaim in joy:

 

“Hey! I did it!”

 

Harry and Draco just shook their heads amusedly at their friend, and how he was so excited about such a little thing. But hey, they knew that for Neville it was a big thing to get his broom to obey, since it was his first time on a broom.

 

Soon Madam Hooch showed them how to mount their brooms correctly- Harry and Draco just sighed in a bored way at this -, and then walked around correcting their grips. To Harry and Draco’s delight, she told Ron that he had been doing it wrong and would have fallen off his broom if he had tried to fly like that. Which Harry made a mental note to mention to Fred and George. Their older brother probably wouldn’t be pleased to hear that Ron had flown his broom without knowing what the hell he was doing. Oh, the amusement it would bring them.

 

Harry’s devious planning was interrupted by Madam Hooch, as she said loudly:

 

“When I blow my whistle, you kick off the ground, hard. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come back down by leaning slightly forward. Understood?”

 

After they all nodded, she started counting to three. However, before she could blew her whistle, Neville, who was still really nervous and jumpy, kicked off the ground and raised to the air.

 

“Come back, Longbottom!” Hooch shouted, but while Neville surely would have wanted to get back to the ground, his broom just kept raising higher and higher. Harry saw poor Nev look as white as a ghost, and could tell that he was absolutely terrified since he couldn’t control his broom.

 

“Shit. His broom is starting to vibrate”, Draco muttered, and indeed, Harry could see it vibrating slightly, which made their friend even more terrified.

 

Then Neville made the mistake of looking down. He gasped, and suddenly slipped sideways in his broom, before-

 

“WHAM!”

 

Neville landed on the ground with a nasty crack, and laid face down in the ground. Madam Hooch ran to him, her face just as white as his had been. It didn’t take long for her to note that the boy had a broken wrist, and so she left to bring him to the hospital wing.

 

“And none of you will touch those brooms while I’m gone, or you’ll be out of Hogwarts faster than you can say Quidditch!” she shouted at them as she half-carried Neville back to the castle.

 

As soon as she was out of sight Ron burst to laughter:

 

“Did you see his face when he was in the air? He looked like he had seen a ghost!”

 

“Shut up, Ronniekins”, Draco said with an annoyed tone, glaring at the freckle-faced git. “That’s my friend you’re laughing at. Last time I checked, you can’t fly properly either.”

 

At this, Ron started glaring at the young Malfoy in what he obviously thought was a murderous way, and said:

 

“Shut up, Malfoy. Longbottom got what he deserved for being all buddy-buddy with someone like you. You shouldn’t even be in Gryffindor, you slimy snake!”

 

“Say that again, Ronald!” Harry shouted, glaring murderously at the idiotic git.

 

“Or what? Why are you even defending a fat crybaby like Longbottom?” he said smugly, before picking Neville’s Remembrall up from the ground. “Maybe I should hide this stupid thing his Gran sent him. It’ll be hilarious to watch him trying to find it.”

 

“Give that here, Ronniekins, or I’ll hex your face full of spiders!” Harry demanded with a freezingly cold voice, glaring at the boy before him.  This made the smirk on Ron’s face falter a little, but, being the idiot he is, he still didn’t give up.

 

“Then come and get it, Potter”, he said, before getting on a broom and raising to the air, smirking smugly at Harry. Apparently he thought that the young Potter wouldn’t have the guts to go after him. Or that he couldn’t fly. Well, time to prove him wrong.

 

Just as Harry was mounting his broom, Granger decided to butt in:

 

“No! You can’t! Madam Hooch told us not to touch the brooms! You’ll get us all in trouble!”

 

“Oh, shut up, Granger! It’s none of your business!” Draco shouted, and watched as Harry raised to the sky after the red-haired git.

 

Said raven haired young Potter was currently facing Ron, who had gone quite pale after he realized that Harry could, in fact, fly quite well.

 

“Give that ball here, Ronniekins!” he shouted, “or I’ll knock you off your broom!”

 

“O-oh yeah?” the git asked, looking really worried. “Go on and try!”

 

This was the wrong thing to say, as Harry flew straight towards Ron, who only just managed to move out of his way. Then he sharply turned his broom around to face the git again, ignoring the students below them, who seemed quite amazed with it. Ron, however, looked now even more worried.

 

“If you want it so much, then catch it if you can!” he shouted, and then threw the Remembrall into the air.

 

“ **That git!”** James shouted, clearly angry that the cowardly git had stooped so low as to just throw the thing away.

 

However, Harry wasn’t the son of two Quidditch players for nothing. As though in slow motion, he saw the ball rise into the air and then start to fall towards the ground. He dived after it, ignoring the screams from the crowd, and as he got closer to it, stretched out his right hand. As soon as he felt the ball in his hand, he pulled his broom straight, realizing that he was just a foot from the ground.

 

He had just landed gently to the ground, when he heard a stern voice of Minnie shout:

 

“HARRY POTTER!”

 


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry becomes a Seeker and the twins write a letter to Charlie. Said Dragon Keeper is not happy with Ron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi people! I'm so sorry it has been so long since I last updated! I swear my teachers are trying to kill me with too much work. Feels like it, at least. But hey, it's Christmas holidays now, so I'll probably update again before New Years. 
> 
> Anyways, thanks to DemonicHope for betaing my chapter (as always), and happy holidays, everyone!

The young Potter and Black Heir followed Professor McGonagall along the corridors, wondering just where was she leading him to.  
  


**“Not to her classroom or to Old Goat’s office, that’s for sure. She looks too excited for that”** , James said, looking at his old Head of the House’s stern-yet-excited expression.  
  


_“I wonder why”_ , Harry wondered to himself. Then he cringed as an exclaim rang in his ears:  
  


**“Prongslet! Anyone would be excited after seeing a flying performance like that, especially when it was done by someone in your House!”**   
  


_“Was it really that amazing?”_   
  


**“Do I really have to say it?”** was said in an exasperated tone by the older Potter.  
  


_“No.”_   
  


**“Good, because-”** He was cut off by McGonagall stopping in front of the door to a classroom. She poked her head in and asked:  
  


“Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?”

 

**“Wood? I wonder who that is”** , James wondered, before his question was answered in the form of a burly fifth-year boy stepping out of the classroom, wearing a puzzled expression.  
  


Before either of the two boys - or the ghost-man-thingy sitting inside the younger’s head - could say anything, McGonagall led them all into a classroom. In there they saw Peeves writing naughty words on the blackboard, and the stern with shooed him off, threatening to call the Bloody Baron if he didn’t leave.  
  


She slammed the door shut after him, and turned to look at the two boys.  
  


“Potter, this is Oliver Wood. Wood, this is Harry Potter, your new Seeker”, she said, gesturing to each of them as she said their names.  
  


Oliver looked at her in a delighted way.  
  


“Are you serious?”  
  


“Of course I am”, the Professor responded, “I’ve never seen anything like it. He is a natural. Was that your first time on a broomstick, Mr Potter?”  
  


“No. Sirius took me flying the day after me met during last summer”, Harry answered truthfully, leaving out the part of his Dad being there too. No need for them to know.  
  


If McGonagall was surprised that he had flown before, she didn’t show it.  
  


“He caught that Remembrall after a fifty-foot dive without even scratching himself”, she told Oliver, “I doubt even Charlie Weasley could have done that. Especially not during his second time on a broom.”  
  


Wood looked like Christmas had come early.  
  


“Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?” he asked Harry, “Oh, I’m the Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, by the way.”  
  


Harry watched as Minnie shut her mouth again, having opened it to apparently say the same thing, and then he answered:  
  


“No, I haven’t. Though I know the rules.”  
  


Wood then started walking around Harry and staring at him, telling them how he had the perfect build for a Seeker.  
  


**“...I don’t like the way he is looking at you. It’s like he is checking you out”** , James growled as he glared at the fifth year.  
  


_“Oh, shut up, Dad. He isn’t checking me out”_ , Harry snapped at him and turned his attention to McGonagall, perfectly ignoring his Dad’s reply. Honestly, he was being stupid. Why would Oliver Wood check him out? The guy was a fifth-year, for fucks sake!  
  


“We should get him a decent broom, Professor. A Cleansweep or a Nimbus Two Thousand, perhaps-”  
  


“I already have a broom - at home, that’s it”, Harry cut in. Of course, he wasn’t about to tell Minnie that he had sneaked a broom to school without permission. He wasn’t stupid, thank you very much.  
  


Both Oliver and McGonagall looked surprised.  
  


“You do? Which broom is it?” Oliver asked, staring at the boy before him.  
  


“Nimbus Two Thousand. Got it as a birthday present from D-...Sirius.”  
  


McGonagall frowned a bit, clearly displeased that Harry had gotten a broom before - seemingly - having any flying lessons, conveniently forgetting that that had been exactly what she had been about to do.  
  


“Well then, Mr Potter, I think you should write a letter to Mr Black and ask him if he could send your broom to you. It’d be best if you explained that you were chosen as the new Gryffindor Seeker, too. I’m sure he’ll be delighted. Both he and your father were decent Quidditch players, themselves.”  
  


**“...Excuse me? Did she just call me and Sirius DECENT Quidditch players? We were the best of our year! We both could have become professional players if we wanted to! She knows that!”** James shouted, causing Harry to have to suppress a wince when it rang in his ears.  
  


_“I know you were, Dad, and I know that she knows that too. But could you PLEASE be a bit less loud? You’re still inside my fucking head, you know.”_   
  


**“Oops. Sorry, Prongslet. Did I hurt your ears?”**   
  


_“Yes”_ , Harry deadpanned, before turning his attention back to the stern Professor. “I’ll write to him as soon as I can, Professor.”  
  


“Good. Perhaps it’d be best if you wrote to your guardians, too. I hear that you live with your relatives, and I’m sure they’d be happy to hear about you joining the Quidditch team”, McGonagall said, nodding.  
 

“Oh, didn’t you know? Sirius is my guardian, and I’ve been living with him since his trial. My relatives were deemed...unfit to raise me, and as my parents would have wanted me to live with him, he got my custody. But I don’t think that has anything to do with this”, Harry said, feigning surprise at the fact that the professor didn’t know. Of course they hadn’t informed the school that his guardian had been changed. If they had, old Dumbles would have heard about it. And that would have been no good for them.  
  


McGonagall looked shocked, but then seemed to compose herself enough to say  
 

“I see. I want to hear you’re training hard, Potter, or I might decide that a punishment was in order after all. Now, have a good day.”  
 

With that, she dismissed both of the boys, and they walked out of the room together, with Oliver looking really confused by how the conversation had ended. Somehow he had a feeling that he would later end up hearing a lot about the matter. He didn’t know how or why, he just that kind of feeling in his gut. In the end, though, he decided to just let it be for the time being, and worry about it when and if something happened to make him think about it again. No use getting himself a headache for thinking too much  
 

Harry, for his part, was humming happily. He could hardly wait to tell his friends about this new turn of events. Oh, Draco would be sooo jealous!

  


-_______-

  


“WHAT?!”  
  


They were all outside of Hospital Wing where Neville had gotten his hand fixed. Draco and Neville were staring at their best friend with their mouths open, while Harry was laughing his ass of at the looks on their faces.  
 

“Are you kidding us? McGonagall made you the new Seeker of the team after you BROKE THE RULES?” Neville asked, looking like he couldn’t believe his ears.  
 

“More importantly, you have permission to have your own broom at school during first year?!” Draco cut in.  
 

“Yup! I’m the youngest Seeker in the century. Awesome, isn’t it?” Harry answered brightly, making his blonde best friend pout and moan:  
 

“I want to get on the team too!”  
 

“What team?” Came from behind them, and as they turned around, they saw Cedric standing there, looking quizzically at them. “What are you guys talking about?”  
 

“Oh, nothing, I just became the youngest Seeker in the century. No biggie”, was the sarcastic answer from the young raven haired Gryffindor, which made Cedric first stare at him, and then exclaim:  
 

“WHAT?! How did that happen?!”  
 

“By being awesome, how else?” Harry joked, before Draco decided to cut in:

 

“The idiotic git named Ron decided to steal Nev’s Remembrall, after Nev had been taken to Hospital Wing - his broom didn’t work properly and he fell down and broke his hand - and then thought it was a good idea to take of on one of the brooms to the air. Obviously the idiot didn’t think that Harry would follow and threaten to drop him off his broom. Then the coward threw the ball away, this dummy here”, he pointed to Harry, “decided to dive after it - it was a fifty-foot dive, by the way - and caught it without getting a scratch on himself. McGonagall saw it, and apparently was so amazed that she dragged Harry to see the Captain of the Gryffindor team right then and there. Didn’t even punish him for not listening to Hooch.”  
 

Cedric gaped at Harry, and then said:  
 

“That’s bloody amazing. Though now we have to play against each other, since I’m the Hufflepuff Seeker…”  
 

“It’s unfair. I want to get on the team too…” Draco muttered, and then proceeded to pout cutely - though he’d hex anyone who called him cute. When Cedric saw his expression, he hugged the blonde boy with a smile on his face.  
  


“Awww, don’t pout Drakey. You can get on the team next year.”  
 

Draco glared at him, but didn’t push him away, choosing to just cross his hands and glare at his best friends, who were trying to stifle their laughter.  
 

“Awww, wittle Drakey and Ceddy are hugging!”  
 

“What have we missed?”  
 

Everyone turned to look at the speakers, and saw the twins walking towards them with grins on their faces.  
 

“Don’t call me Drakey! And I’m not little!” Draco shouted at them, his face turning scarlet.  
 

“Awww, don’t worry Drakey, we love you even if you’re little”, Cedric said, only to yelp when Draco stepped on his foot painfully. This caused him to loosen his hug on the blonde boy, who huffed and stepped away from him, daring anyone to say anything with his glare.  
 

Of course, everyone else were too busy laughing their asses off at them to make any kind of comment. It took them five minutes to calm down enough for Fred to ask:  
 

“So, how did your lesson go?”  
 

This was then followed by Draco and Harry telling everything that happened to them, and the twins shaking their heads at their so-called little brother’s stupidity. Honestly, how the hell were they related to such an idiot again?  
 

“-and then McGonagall brought me to see Oliver Wood, and appointed me the new Seeker of the Gryffindor team”, Harry finished his tale.  
 

“Oh, we heard about that from Oliver”, Fred said.  


“Yeah. He was almost skipping when he told us. So we knew that you had to be good for him to act like that”, George agreed.  
 

“But damn, fifty-foot dive without a scratch? You’re a natural, Harry. And fucking crazy”, they added as one. Harry just shrugged.  
 

“What can I say? I’m just awesome like that.”  
 

“Sure you are. Anyway, did you know that the idiot aka Ronald didn’t have a fucking idea of how to properly hold a broom while flying?” Draco said.  
 

The twins stared at him.  


“Seriously? Oh, wait until Charlie-”,  
 

“-hears about this.”  
 

“He’ll be so fucking angry at Ron for endangering his precious broom.”  
 

“Well, shouldn’t we go to write him a letter about it, then?” Neville asked, raising his eyebrow.  
 

Everyone agreed with him, and soon the group was making its way towards the Gryffindor common room to write that letter.

 

-_______-

  


Next morning one red-headed man’s breakfast was interrupted by a loud tapping noise coming from his window. When he turned to look towards it, he saw that the noise was caused by a Snowy Owl, who was knocking at the glass with a letter in its peak.  
 

The redheaded man, named Charlie Weasley, stood up and opened the window, watching as the owl flew to his table, dropped the letter to his plate and landed next to his newspaper, which a Prophet owl had brought him earlier. So he walked back to his table, handed a piece of bacon to the owl - he guessed that it was a girl - and took the letter to his hand.  
 

Charlie Weasley

Dragon Reserve

Romania

 

Was written at the front in the pretty neat handwriting that he recognized as George’s, and, wondering what could possibly have made them suddenly write to him, he opened it.

 

Dear Charlie,

How are you doing? It’s your favorite little brothers writing to you about something we thought you’d want to know! You see, our new friends Harry, Draco and Neville - who are all first year Gryffindors and sitting right next to us - had a flying class with Ronniekins today, and something very interesting happened.

Did you know that Ron had taken your old broom and went to flying in the past without your permission? He was bragging about it to everyone the whole morning, and about how he had almost hit a hang-glider with it. Of course, the story is probably bullshit, since we doubt the idiot even knows what a hang-glider is. Still, he DID take your broom, which I’m sure you’re not so happy about, as no-one had taught him how to fly properly.  
  


Anyway, Harry and Draco told us that they found something out during their flying lesson: Ron didn’t know how to hold a broom properly when flying. According to Harry, Ronniekins “had no fucking idea how to fly properly - he could barely dodge in the air”.

How does he know this, you ask?   
  


Well, as I’m sure you know, the school brooms really suck. And Neville apparently got one of the worst ones, and ended up falling down and breaking his hand. Hooch took him to Hospital Wing, and as soon as they were gone, Ron started laughing at Neville and picked his Remembrall - which Nev had gotten from his Gran - from the ground. He then started going on about how he should hid in the roof or something, and Harry and Draco got angry and tried to get it back. Ronniekins insulted them, and it ended with him taking to the air with Harry following him.

Har threatened to make him fall off his broom if he didn’t, and then flew straight towards him, making Ron just barely be able to dodge. He even said that he had purposely flown in a way that would be easy to dodge if you knew how to fly. The thing ended with Ronnie throwing the Remembrall away and Harry catching it after a fifty-foot dive without a scratch, and McGonagall making him the youngest Seeker in the century.

Yes, dearest brother, he is a better flyer than you.   
  


The point is that we’ve come to the conclusion that Ronnie has no fucking idea how to fly properly on a broom, and that he could have smashed to something when he took your broom without permission. Which would have resulted in it breaking. We thought you wanted to know.   
  


Oh, and we also befriended this one Hufflepuff from our year named Cedric Diggory. And we’re doing good. We haven’t blown up the toilet yet.   
  


See you!   
  


George & Fred   
Your dearest and most awesome brothers

 

Charlie stared at the letter with his mouth agape, trying to wrap his brain around what he had just read. Oh, he could understand that a first year had become the new Gryffindor Seeker as the youngest Seeker in the last century. That wasn’t the problem. What he couldn’t believe was that Ron had taken his precious broom without permission when he couldn’t even fly properly. No, actually, he could. Ronald had always done things like that because he thought he could do anything without consequences. And because he was a git. All of his older brothers - except Percy, most likely - knew this fact. However, they normally just ignored it or, in Fred and George’s case, pranked him in an attempt to make him less gittish. Not that it usually worked.  
  


This time the boy had gone too far. Everyone in the family knew how precious Charlie’s old broom was to him - after all, he had had it since he was a kid and had used through his school years, all the way until he became started his work at the Reserve. Then he had gotten a fireproof broom, not wanting his old one to accidentally get destroyed. He still flow it, though, whenever he was forced to visit his childhood home and had to make a quick escape from his Mother’s rants - the only reason he even went to Burrow was the twins and his Dad, as Bill often visited him at the Reserve and so could see him pretty much whenever he wanted to.  
 

He knew that he had made it pretty damn clear that no-one was to touch his broom without his permission. Ever. Especially if you didn’t know how to fly. Heck, he had even threatened to not come to Burrow at all anymore if his Mother tried to give his broom to one of the twins or to Ron. So he would have thought that Ron would have gotten to his thick head that it was a very bad idea to take his precious broom. But no. OF COURSE he still had to fly it and risk it getting broken. Which the red headed Dragon Keeper didn’t like. Not in the least.

And so, he decided that it was time to teach Ron exactly why it was a good idea to listen to him when he told him “No”.  Maybe it’d teach him to not act like an idiotic git, too. It was doubtful, but hey, a man can always hope, right?  
  


It just so happened that the first Quidditch match of the year was coming soon at Hogwarts. It’d be a perfect reason for him to go there and find Ron. He would not let his youngest brother get away with what he had done. Maybe he could get the Twins and their new friends to prank him a bit, too.  
 

Oh, how he loved having two pranksters for little brothers.

 

 


End file.
